


Current Occupations

by MaybeSherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awesome Molly Hooper, F/M, Jollock - Freeform, Molly Hooper Appreciation, Other, Polyamory, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2019-11-16 06:03:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 21,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18088814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaybeSherlock/pseuds/MaybeSherlock
Summary: In-between cases, Sherlock discovers that, "Pathologist" is not Molly Hooper's only occupation.





	1. A Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> This will be multiple chapters. Just thought I'd put this out there and see if there was any interest. Hope you enjoy!

“Bored!” Sherlock exclaimed for the fifth time as he sat languishing in Mycroft’s office chair. It had been over a week since Sherlock had taken a case. Lestrade had banished Sherlock from the Yard two days ago for this same pestering and pining behavior. He had tried to distract Sherlock with cold cases, but Sherlock stated, “Only the recently dead interest me!”

“Honestly, Sherlock! I have nothing for you, why don’t you go and visit Mummy and Daddy or read through some of the files on your friends if you are that bored. I don’t care what you do, but you have to get out of my office!” Mycroft said with exasperation. 

“Files?” Sherlock stopped spinning in the chair and abruptly regarded Mycroft. “You mean on John and Lestrade, and…”

“Yes,” Mycroft interrupted. “Even Dr. Hooper,” he said with a small inclination in his voice and a smirk on his lips. He had known for a while now of his brother’s growing affection for the pathologist. Sherlock, however was stupidly unaware and actively denying anything close to feelings. Mycroft thought to himself, “I truly am the clever one.”

“…bu…I…what…” Sherlock stammered after his brother--he hated it when Mycroft made him feel like a child! Mycroft smiled and turned his back to Sherlock. He approached the walnut filing cabinet behind his desk and unlocked the top drawer. He lay the folder containing the files atop his desk and made for the door. 

Regaining his composure and assuming nonchalance, Sherlock sat up in the chair and looked at the folder with an eyebrow cocked with curiosity. 

“Have a nice time reading about the goldfish, Sherlock. If this nosh keeps your attention you’ll be obliged to admit that I am the smart one!” With that last quip, Mycroft closed the door with a final click as though it were the dot to his exclamation point. 

“Pretentious tit,” Sherlock said under his breath, borrowing one of John’s more colorful insults. Out of spite, Sherlock refused to go straight for Molly’s file and he picked up Lestrade’s first under the pretense he knew everything about John. 

After skimming the first page, Sherlock lost interest and his eyes were pulled to Molly’s file. Certainly nothing as typical as Gerald Lestrade’s history could keep him from what he’d been restraining to discover for years now that he had her full story in front of him. 

Sherlock picked up her file and began to quickly read. Of course he knew the basics: housing history, past and current employment, current research…but before he let his eyes go any further his brain halted. Under “Current Employment” there were two positions listed: Pathologist and Business Owner—Massage “Living Body Studio.” Surely she was making enough money at Bart’s, why would she need a second occupation? How had she kept this from him for so long, Sherlock didn’t even think John knew she had a second job. Now more than intrigued, Sherlock stood and made for the door. 

Down the hall Mycroft smirked and leaned back in the chair as he looked at the screen that showed his now empty office, files left spread out on his desk. “I can’t believe it took him this long,” Mycroft said as Lady Smallwood handed him a cup of tea.

“Don’t be too harsh, didn’t you say this is the first woman to have this affect on him? He has to learn. For a Holmes man, love doesn’t come instinctually, if you’ll recall,” Lady Smallwood said softly into Mycroft’s ear and she watched the small hairs rise along the collar of his shirt. 

Outside Sherlock hailed a cab and gave the address he looked up “Living Body Studio.” 

During the cab ride, it had begun to rain, however Sherlock was unaware. Once inside the cab, he had withdrawn into his mind palace to search for any evidence he had missed that would explain this second occupation. 

The cabbie pulled up across the street from the studio and waited for his fare, yet Sherlock sat there with his eyes closed. 

“Oi! Mate, pay up and get out!” The cabbie spat rudely. Unaware of this rudeness, Sherlock paid, turned up his collar, and stepped outside. Hurry though he may, Sherlock was drenched by the time he made it into the pub that sat opposite of the “Living Body Studio.” He ordered a pint and settled himself next to the window and waited. It was three in the afternoon, Molly’s shift is done at 4 today…Five o'clock came and still the studio remained closed. 

The fine etching on the front of the store glass read:

“The Living Body Studio  
Dr. M. Hooper  
By appointment only”

It listed one phone number that was not Molly’s. Sherlock resisted the urge to call. His number was unlisted, so she would not be aware that it was him calling, but “Would she pick up, knowing it was my number?” Sherlock thought to himself. 

“Sir,” Sherlock distantly heard over his shoulder. “Sir!” a weathered bar maid said sourly. “Ya have to be a patron if’n yer’t stay.”

“And what,” Sherlock inclined to the full pint of beer sitting in front of him, “do you think that is?” he retorted with just as much tartness. 

“That’s the same pour as’n ye had when ye came in!” She said accusingly.

“Yes, fine then,” Sherlock said loftily. “I’ll take another.” 

They both scowled as she walked away, off to get another pint. When Sherlock looked back to the studio…the light was on! Damn the woman! He had missed who had walked into the studio during the twenty eight second interchange with the bar wench! He was angrily putting on his scarf and jacket when she came back with his fresh pint. 

“Now, where’n do ye think yer goin’?” the woman asked forgetting to be rude.

“Let it be a mystery for the rest of your days!” Sherlock spat, and on an impulse that took him by surprise, he slammed down a twenty pound note, then slammed down the fresh beer. As he placed the empty pint glass down on the table he added, “—Which are numbered due to the fact you’ve been chain smoking since your early twenties. The only exercise you get is running beer glasses back and forth to the bar—many that are your own, and your congestive heart failure leaves you in a constant state of edema and pulmonary hypertension!” 

Outside with a satisfied smirk on his face, Sherlock turned up his collar. The weather had not improved and it was getting dark. Sherlock continued to stand in the rain as he assessed the shop further. The front of the store was almost all glass and he saw more clearly the details within. The bright bamboo floors absorbed just the right amount of the abundant light so as to make the atmosphere soft inside. The white walls were accented only by shelves of plants. Behind the simple desk, there were shadows of adjacent hallways no doubt leading to the massage suites. 

As Sherlock was cataloguing these details Molly came out from the back hallway, sat down at the desk, and opened a laptop. She was wearing dark brown, three quarter length yoga pants that molded to her fit form, revealing to Sherlock a body he never associated with her loose-fitting work attire. She wore also an overly large white linen dress shirt with simple black buttons—of which she left the top two undone. Molly rolled up the shirt’s sleeves and crossed her bare feet neatly under the chair. 

Beside the computer, a thin white phone rang. Molly inclined her head sweetly, “Living Body Studio, Molly speaking,” he saw her lips say. As the person on the other line spoke, Sherlock deduced the other half of the conversation based on how Molly’s expression changed. Canceled appointment.

Molly frowned but said, “I am sorry to hear that, let me check the schedule book.” She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder and Sherlock admired the subtle shadows on her exposed neck. “Yes, next Sunday seven pm will work out lovely.” Pause, Molly smiled, “You’re welcome. Enjoy your evening as well, goodbye.” She typed out a few last words and then closed the computer looking around the shop. Peacefully she closed her eyes and placed her hands in her lap.

Sherlock smirked and began walking across the street. Her eyes were still closed when he approached the front glass door and knocked gently enough so that he would not startle her.

When Molly opened her eyes she saw Sherlock; his face glowing from the light of the store and his silhouette blanketed by the dark city behind him.


	2. A Choice is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Sherlock's unexpected appearance at the Studio, Molly makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the interest and positive words for going forward! 
> 
> While writing this, it began to morph into a little bit of the non-science based context. This was not anticipated but it felt fun give Molly control over it! Sherlock's thoughts about this new situation to come. 
> 
> Your thoughts, feelings, ideas for the developing story are very welcome!

The moment Molly opened her eyes and saw Sherlock, drenched and smirking she knew everything was going to be different from here on out. This was her passion; Sherlock had crime and the violin, Molly had the body. The way the intricate systems of bone, muscle, and sinew composed and manipulated the human form was captivating to Molly. Each and every body she touched was thrilling to her. In Molly’s opinion, this was the masterpiece, not Michaelangelo’s “David” or Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5.” 

But her devotion to the human form was private, nobody in the life she built around Pathology knew this about her. (Aside from Mycroft Holmes who had discovered this second occupation and strangely enough became one of her clients.—A promise of secrecy was respectfully, and mutually exchanged.) The woman that studies postmortems and writes Cause of Death reports had become the facade. The Molly that was devoted to the living body was the true Molly. 

Her passion for the body initially manifested itself into her Pathology degree and ultimately to doing postmortems at St. Bartholomew’s. But shortly after she began her career, she discovered that her passion had developed heavily favoring only one state of being. A new and exciting approach had been incepted into her soul. To feel and manipulate the body’s dynamic, complex, living energy became Molly’s true obsession. 

Thankfully, having a pHd in Pathology paid well, because it was back to school for Molly. It took her two and a half years, but the manifestation of her obsession came to life—“The Living Body Studio.” It was soon clear that every day she looked forward to her Studio client appointments more than any postmortem subject she ever had. Her focus became all about the glow within the body that sustained its magnificent form and how much time she could devote to massage. Because massage really was the only way she could feed this addiction without putting herself in jail for harassment. With massage, it was completely acceptable to intimately touch, caress, and—for Molly—worship the form that held the materials of life.

It had been two years since she opened the studio and business couldn’t be better. Each and every appointment slot was booked months in advance, and enviously sought after should she have a cancellation or sudden slot available. The “Suddenly Available Appointment” she only offered to her favorite subjects and they jumped at the opportunity: no matter their schedules, they made time for a Molly Appointment such was her skill. Molly found that her knowledge and respect of a dead body made it possible for her to be conscious of the power of a living body. She alone could feel the energy of this connection and give it the appreciation it deserved. In return, the living body gave her command and peace over the subject beneath her fingertips. This mastery and attention kept her a steady and eager clientele. 

It was this feeling of dominion and energy she developed from massaging a living subject that grew in her and became her addiction. She craved it constantly, and “The Living Body Studio” satiated that desire. 

So, when Molly saw her most desired subject standing there at the door to her deliverance, she made her decision. Molly stood and walked to the door with a peaceful and free smile, leaving the Molly-From-The-Morgue behind her. 

Sherlock saw the instant she opened her eyes, this was different. Molly didn’t walk like that, Molly didn't hold her posture like that, Molly didn’t maintain eye-contact with such possession, Molly’s smile was never that bright. And before she even reached the door, Sherlock could feel himself slowly begin to crumble.

Molly opened the door and stood aside, but he did not move. “Sherlock, please come in. Stay on the rug and I will go get you a robe and towel.” Molly felt the balance of control shift immediately when Sherlock waited to be asked in. “Good,” Molly thought to herself, “He feels it too.”

Gone was the smart comment he thought of when he crossed the two lane road to the Studio. The threshold seemed just as wide as the street he just crossed. Before he could reply, she had silently closed (and locked) the door behind him, turned and disappeared behind the corner. Somehow he felt an energy pull in him like a line of light that originated in her and connected within him. Though the store was brightly lit, it suddenly seemed that a bulb was missing or a curtain had been drawn. 

Sherlock scrubbed his eyes and wiped the rain from his face. “What the hell are you thinking about, idiot man?” Sherlock thought. “That is hunger you are feeling,” he said to himself unconvincingly. 

Molly’s bare feet made no sound as she approached Sherlock and stood silently in front of him as he rubbed the palms of his hands into his eye sockets. “Feel it, Sherlock,” Molly said internally. “Open your eyes, now!” 

Sherlock saw nothing but the small pricks of light behind his palms: they unexpectedly clustered together to join one point of brilliant white light. He could not stand it one second longer and he opened his eyes and saw, her. Molly froze the moment, pulling the connection of light and energy into herself and she held Sherlock motionless in front of her: drips of rainwater slowly rolled over Sherlock’s cheek bones and she let the drop continue down his neck. She traced it as it rolled over his clavicle and out of her sight. Molly released him and allowed the connection to once again balance between them. 

“What did you say?” Sherlock said a little too loudly, especially to someone standing directly in front of him. But as he said it, he knew she hadn’t spoken. Sherlock cleared his throat and looked away from the intensity of her eyes. Molly smiled: had he become bashful? “What I meant was, thank you,” Sherlock said and began drying his face and hair with the offered towel. 

“You’re welcome, Sherlock,” Molly said. “Why don’t you go into the bathroom around the corner to your left and change? You’ll find hangars for your clothes and slippers inside the sauna.” Sherlock raised his eyebrow in question. “It keeps them warm for your feet,” they both looked down at his soggy dress shoes. As Sherlock rounded the corner, he heard Molly say, “I can feel your toes are frozen.”


	3. Canceled Appointment

Once inside the washroom, Sherlock paused. The air was humid and held the scents of cedar and lavender suspended around him. He took a breath in, slow and deep and he began assessing the damage done to the room in his mind palace with a sign on the door that stated "Dr. Molly Hooper."

Sherlock opened the door; the floors were the same cold hospital linoleum and the steel lab tables were still populated with microscopes, case files, and half empty boxes of latex free gloves. This reassured him, but continuing his inspection he noticed the walls that were previously painted a sterile white, had become large open windows. The soft breeze moving through the lab blew off the top few pages of an open case file and carried away the stifling odor of harsh cleaning chemicals and formaldehyde. 

Sherlock allowed his body to go into autopilot and he began to remove his soaked clothing. 'I can not use any of this contaminated information!' Sherlock said to the mind palace microscope. 'This whole situation requires new data.' Molly's new demeanor and presence called for an updated approach. Sherlock was at a loss for where to begin, when the image of Molly looking at him with her intense new emanation. Molly's elegant neck shadowed and accented by the glow of the studio lights appeared behind his closed eyelids. 

The unexpected emotion her image stirred in Sherlock's stomach startled him and he rapidly backed out of the lab and slammed the door shut. Sherlock had not felt that emotion in over fifteen years; he had protected himself from it all this time. His heart was racing and his breath caught when he looked to the left of the door and found another, newly built door open wide to a room with the label, "Molly" next to it. 

Sherlock let out a gasp and flashed his eyes open. The sudden appearance of a new door in his mind palace surprised him. He had not been able to see into it, only a warm glow that cast a beam through the doorframe. 

Now dressed in the white silk robe she had given him, Sherlock had nothing else to do but collect more data. He exited the washroom steeling his nerve.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Molly was sitting behind the desk and when Sherlock came around the corner she inclined her head to the chair opposite her own. The thin robe draped off his shoulders and was wrapped low round his waist. The brilliant white of the robe competed with his pale parlor and gave the skin tone of his chest and neck a flush of living muscle and tissue. The sight of his skin captivated Molly and her fingers tingled at the thought of tracing the structures beneath. 

Seating himself comfortably in the chair, Sherlock crossed his legs and said, "It appears you have an available appointment." 

"Yes, Sherlock," Molly said. "My appointment canceled."

"Good," Sherlock said with a confident and coy smile. "I'll take it." This, he had hoped would at least throw her off as it had in the past. He had toyed and manipulated the affection she had for him and gotten what he wanted every time.

"Well, I hadn't been looking to take on a new subject in the near future. But I won't deny that I have wanted desperately to have you in my service," Molly said remaining professional. "I have eight clients, and each one is so incredibly different. Imagine what you would be like," Molly said with eager curiousness. 

"Your service...you--eight? You only have eight clients!?" Sherlock asked brazenly allowing a haughty tone to inflict the question, again hoping to unseat her farce.

Molly did not falter. She inclined her head in a feigned, weary way and said, "Yes, and taking on another subject, and one that promises to be very consuming of energy, is all I can handle." She slid a piece of paper in front of Sherlock. 

"This is all contingent of course," Molly said in a more business like tone. "You must sign and agree to the conditions."

Molly watched the defined muscles of his forearm shift under his skin and followed the veins down to his fingers that held the paper in front of him. Sherlock released the paper from the hand she had been focusing on, looked at his fingers and then rubbed them against his thigh. They had begun to tingle, but he disregard this, thinking it was only his hands warming up from the cold outside. 

"New Appointment Agreement" the header stated, and Sherlock read on. Columns of check marks to identify any previous illness, current medications, etc., and on the last page, a few simple lines read:

"Upon signing below you agree to the following:  
\- The service provided will not be discussed with anyone, in any context outside of this Studio  
\- The 24 hours following the appointment will remain free of any obligations"  
Below there were two lines marked with an 'x' for a signature. On the left, Molly's tight scientific signature had already been signed.

"Two signatures?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes," Molly politely replied. "Yours and mine. I am also agreeing to the conditions." 

"But, really?" Sherlock asked, "If you only have eight clients, the odds of any of them running into another is almost impossible in a city as big as London. And the appointment is 24 hours long?" Sherlock continued.

"That may be, but 'almost' means possible," Molly patiently began to answer. "The longest appointment I've had went for twelve hours, and a recovery time is absolutely necessary. So, I made it 24 hours just to be on the safe side."

Molly leaned forward and folded her hands in front of both of them. This commanding position and her eyes focused on him made his body pulse an anticipation for something to be revealed that was hidden. His eyes traced the shadow of cleavage past her shirt that draped open when she leaned forward. 

Sherlock said regaining himself, "That is unendurable. And what are you charging for these extended sessions?" He uncrossed his legs, placed the agreement between them, and mirrored her posture. 

Molly smiled and enjoyed the power beginning to grow in Sherlock as she watched him recover from the disturbance of a 'different Molly.' 

Maintaining professionalism, Molly said, "It is up to the subject's discretion what the amount of compensation will be."

"You leave that to the client?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes," Molly reached over and retrieved the pen setting next to her laptop. "And before you make your deductions. In no way are these appointments uncouth or discreditable--as your raised eyebrow is keen to believe. Keep in mind also that I own my own flat in London, I am free of debt only two and a half years out of completing my medical degree, and I am in escrow for a coastline property in Greece."

Sherlock had no reply. His silent gaping mouth made her smile. "On the 'x' then, Sherlock," Molly said and tapped the paper. He took the pen and looked at her suspiciously. Slowly, as if he hoped she would make another enchanting position change that made his diaphragm flip, he signed the agreement.


	4. Making a Connection

Standing, Molly offered her hand and Sherlock stood to shake it. "Do not take this lightly, Sherlock," Molly said as he rose from his chair to take her hand. "You have committed to absolute discretion. If the agreement has been breached, and no client has to date, these appointments will be over."

She seemed to stand taller, as if they were now on equal ground. The intensity Molly put behind her words lay heavy behind his eyes and hot in their joined hands. Accepting the challenge he had been aching for, he said, "I am yours." He replied in the same words her other clients had used of their own volition.

But hearing those words from Sherlock sent lightening bolts of adrenaline throughout her body and pulsed in her mind and carnal center. No other subject could have evoked that kind of burning energy and influence. Molly had once desired to have Sherlock's body in her power: first, when she met him and began her infatuation with him and second, when she had discovered the control of energy she had developed. But a year ago, Molly had finally gained control of her infatuation with his unobtainable self. She had shrunk the feelings to an echo and felt them seldom and thin. Never once have the boundaries she had mastered between desire and power been challenged like this, and already they had begun to blur. 

Sherlock smiled in victory when he saw how his words affected her. He knew Molly had recently allowed her feelings for him fade, but he found that his emotions for her were gaining depth, as her's had become shallow. This 'New Molly' was captivating him like he'd never been intrigued by her before. It was a change he wanted to chase, to investigate. He wanted more of her stirring high, and he would get it. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Follow me," Molly said as she turned to walk down the dark hallway. Sherlock took the opportunity to try and deduce what was behind the door. The store-fronts were old in their origin, but updated to follow the respected and popular location. But the hallway they were walking down seemed to become more ancient. 

Small sconces were placed so far apart he could only see the way her shoulders and hips swayed in opposite directions when they passed one of these ineffectual globes of light. The floor and walls were now a smooth and polished, dark stone that gave the impression they were passing into a secret corridor. 

"Molly," Sherlock said with an attempt at ambiguous humor, "Will you be locking me in a dungeon?" 

Just then, Molly stopped at a clouded glass door and turned to face Sherlock. Her abrupt stop had fooled his stride and he stood haltingly before her, inches apart. 

"Shh..." Molly said as a whisper and placed two fingers to his lips. With that simple sound and the hot pressure of her finger tips against his lips, he closed his suddenly heavy eyelids and sighed as if he had been holding his breath since he exited the mind palace room that he knew to be Dr. Molly Hooper's. 

She spoke in a whisper, but the breeze of her voice caressed his jawline, "In here, we are quiet. This is not a place were voices are welcome. Words can lie and be malicious or misinterpreted, but there is no deceitfulness or manipulation in the way we will communicate in here." Molly said this to each client every time they passed through the door, but not this close to their body. The proximity made them both unbalanced as the energy in them struggled to find ground. Molly harnessed her's first and instinctively reached it out to the wavering energy inside him. 

The instant they made contact, Sherlock startled back from her. "Molly...I..." Sherlock stammered as he struggled to say exactly what, he did not know.

"I have to say," Sherlock began again in a quiet voice as though the stones echoed the "Shh..." she insisted on a moment before. "I do not like to be touched," he had intended to use this fact as a blow to her power in the situation, but instead of gaining him the upper hand, it came out as plea more than a repartee. 

"Sherlock," Molly whispered and her heart broke for his loneliness. "When was the last time someone touched you, and I mean touched you with affection?" 

Despite being put on the spot with such an intimate question, Sherlock new exactly when the last time someone had touched him with tenderness. 

"Mother insisted I hug her three Christmases ago," Sherlock answered. "John must have tried to when I surprised him and Mary at the restaurant after I returned, but he decided on tackling me with his hands around my neck." 

"I will not touch you until you ask me," Molly said seriously. 

Sherlock, harnessing himself said, "Until? What if I never ask you?"

"That has yet to happen," Molly said as she opened the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for those commenting and leaving Kudos! I have to apologize for the short chapters and slow progress. This is the longest story I've written, and I haven't written a lot. 
> 
> I think I need to add "Slow Burn" to the story's tags!
> 
> But, if you like it and want to read along, enjoy!


	5. New Subject

When Sherlock stepped through the door he found himself in a vast solarium, what he soon deduced used to be a large courtyard. Yet this space was completely enclosed with frosted glass that rose three stories and supported a clear, vaulted glass ceiling. The glow of the city lights reflecting off the clouds supplied a foggy lunar luminescence. The storm had settled over the city and Sherlock could watch the rivers of raindrops run the length of the glass walls. The solarium was lit to the point of near darkness, lighted only with a glow that encompassed the base of the room as though it were a narrow mote of phosphorescent starlight. The air was thick and humid, Sherlock felt his skin become dewey.

Sherlock's gaze quickly scanned the space and saw Molly had moved to the center of the room where she stood on a stone platform, ten foot by ten foot that stood atop six stairs. Crossing the distance took Sherlock thirteen paces and Molly looked down and maintained eye contact with Sherlock to the last step onto the platform. She stood behind a simple wooden table, perfectly proportioned for a supine adult. A plush cotton pad lay on top and Molly looked down at it and back to Sherlock. 

In the middle of this vast and dark space, Sherlock felt the moisture in the air and on his body begin to vibrate. It stopped after only a second or two, leaving his skin feeling clammy and cool. Again, Sherlock followed Molly's eyes to the platform then back to him. Sherlock hesitated, hoping that the delay would bring back the energy on his skin. He had a flash of the last time Irene Adler had stroked his arm, only Sherlock now felt the same heat and friction but without the reassuring pressure of touch. 

Molly allowed the translucent energy to warm him longer the second time. She could feel him remember with longing, the comforting sensation of touch, and he was struggling to subdue it. Moly walked around the table and stood behind Sherlock. She increased her influence and held his kindled energy still as she did when he first arrived.

Sherlock watched motionless as her arm reached around him and untied the knot of his robe. Removing it from his shoulders, she allowed only the silk to contact his skin. Molly folded the robe on her arm and slowly drew back the energy from Sherlock's perspiring skin. Without the incandescent heat dancing on his overheated skin, Sherlock began to cool again. Disrobed and now devoid of her effect, his mind cleared and he took a fleeting private moment to regain control while she walked back to the other side of the table.

His scientific brain searched his memory for evidence of what he was experiencing with Molly. But his genius came up short. Never has he read of someone controlling another person's thoughts and nervous system to the point of actually causing sensation. Yet, Molly had done just that, and he wanted more. If Sherlock wanted to discover just how for she could go, he would have to control his initial startled reaction when he felt her and allow her power. 

Molly stood with her back to him and Sherlock lay down on the cotton cushion looking up at the storm. She turned when she heard his body settle on the table. Laying the robe on a shelf under the table, Molly took a sheet made of the same white material. She draped the silk over the length of his body so that his relief looked like a statue carved out of marble. The sheet shadowed and shone with each curve of his form. So striking and arousing was his surrendering body, Molly allowed the growing echo of desire to shine momentarily in the warming core of her heart before she regained herself. She knew she had to maintain control if she was to hold the power over him. If she failed, she knew not how her relationship with Sherlock would change, for either good or bad. 

Molly folded back the sheet over his lower half, exposing his torso. She looked at Sherlock and moved her hand slowly in front of his eyes. Sherlock followed her instruction and closed them. His abdomen and chest were torn with scars that shone against the shadowed porcelain of his skin.

When Sherlock closed his eyes, he tried to slow his racing heart and the best way he knew how to do that was enter his mind palace. Molly's doors instantly appeared: one, a familiar swinging metal, the other wooden with a large glass window. This did nothing to settle his tachycardia. On the contrary, he now felt sweaty and anxious. Sherlock remained unmoving before the doors, unaccustomedly unsure what to do. 

While Molly watched and waited for Sherlock's anxious breathing to relax, she realized the magnitude of the evening so far had settled over Sherlock. She sympathized with how he must feel, experiencing for the first time someone reaching into their being. And his brilliant mind, searching in vain for scientific ground, will come up short and continue to buffer.

Taking pity on his efforts, Molly reached out her hand and held it several inches above Sherlock's chest. Moving in time with Sherlock's breathing, Molly slowly lowered her hand until she could feel the heat radiate from his body. She watched the tight skin move over his ribs and intercostal spaces, each flex of his diaphragm that rose his chest, and slowly assumed their function. 

This was always the first move Molly made over her clients, and she found it allowed for her to make the connection between energies more fluid. Each breath she took was now for the both of them. When she discovered this with her first subject, it made each session progress with greater success. 

Sherlock felt Molly's hand descend and vacillate with his erratic breathing. He was gaining a more clear mental image of her standing over him the closer her hand came to his body. His heart pulsed wildly when it occurred to him what she was taking. His initial flight impulse demanded his body gasp for more air in order to sustain an escape, but he found it was not his body that responded. 

Molly took a deep breath, showing Sherlock that she now held the responsibility and he need not concern his body with the obligation of breathing. She knew though, that his survival instinct would panic--all of her subjects had. So she was ready for the fight. 

Sherlock heaved his chest in an failed attempt to draw breath and prevent the suffocation and death his instincts told him was coming. Gasping, he shot his eyes open and was instantly overwhelmed with the atmosphere surrounding him. So much air, life giving oxygen around him but he was helpless to draw it into himself. He could see the oxygen molecules glowing minuscule and white all around them like stars orbiting their nucleus in a new galaxy they just created. Sherlock looked at Molly, eyes pleading to save him from the expanding abyss. 

Mercifully, Molly began to move the air slowly in and out of their lungs. Sherlock's body began to succumb and fell into the exhaustion from the struggle. Unable to keep his eyes open any longer, he closed them and surrendered to Molly's victory. She allowed the rhythm of their breath to settle into her and ignite the connection between them. With each new breath she gave him, the freeing energy he gained began to spread through his spinal cord and down the structure of his nervous system. Though he was not alone on the beautifully organized pathways. He felt her presence through each tendril as she mapped his neurons, discovering every ache and soreness in his body.

The yielding was bliss. It was a reward Sherlock never knew came from submitting. He wanted her to take more, he wanted to give her more. 

Molly smiled while she watched Sherlock's hand move to her own. He enclosed his fingers around her and he committed his body to her.


	6. Harmony

He did not lose consciousness, that he knew. But his mind seemed to be now of its own entity, possessed only of weightless thought and sensation. Sherlock could feel the weight of Molly's hand on his chest, and his sweat acted like a medium of energy that bonded her flesh to his own. 

The pressure and gravity of her palm promised a powerful force that could crush his bones, but her celestial and transcendental comfort outshone the shadow of threatening thunder. Molly's palm was hot but not scalding, and beams of warmth radiated from her fingertips. She guided her hand behind his neck and cradled the base of his head. Wet with perspiration, the strands of his hair ran slick between her digits. 

Through the occipital bone and down the ocular nerves of his mind, Molly took Sherlock's vision next. Needing both hands to control all of his enraptured conscious, she moved to the head of the table and cradled his neck in her hands, suspending Sherlock's head above the cushion. 

Sherlock opened his eyes, he had seen the light of the room change behind his eyelids. He was no longer in the dark glass solarium. An ethereal light beamed from each cloud in the lofty heavens and each wave that gently rolled white and foaming over the sand. 

For Sherlock was lying nude on a table in the middle of an expansive and lonely beach. It was not sunrise nor was it sunset; the blushed rose and peach colors of the atmosphere suspended the moment between the two. Distant rocky cliffs of the shoreline were covered in moss and bordered a deep, verdant green forest of oak, fir, and redwood. The tops of the giant redwood trees were lost in low dense clouds. 

Turning his head in both directions, Sherlock found the never-ending beach faded away in the spray of waves and fog. Although he seemed to be the only person that has or will ever exist in this nebulous location, his was not the feeling of loneliness and isolation that he had experienced before. 

A pressure and presence of energy was moving through the muscles of his shoulders. Sherlock could feel the touch but not a contact of skin: it was palpable however, the strokes were internal. 

The energy undulated through his flesh and bone like the waves rolling slow and smooth over the sand all around him. Down and back through the muscles that supported the tension Sherlock was holding in his back, spine, joints, and limbs. 

Passage of time was unknown to the motionless light and infinity waves he had no desire to count. Place did not matter, only his presence in it. 

Never has Molly allowed her spirit present in the places she takes her subjects, allowing them to only feel an amorphous and anonymous energy they felt no need to identify. And so too with Sherlock, she kept herself behind a veil. The goal was new energy for the subject's body and mind. Within the cells and structures of the living body, Molly discovered that in order for the body to achieve total presence and peace, she had too expel the toxic stress and tension enslaving the release...

Something was wrong, deviating from her usual process. Sherlock's conscious was straying, searching. Molly held her energy still in Sherlock, as if any movement would give her location and identity away. It innocently occurred to Sherlock though, that the new presence of energy in him could not hide, for it was his space the energy was in. 

"Molly," Sherlock spoke to her with a voice that echoed the distant thunder, and when he said the first word ever muttered in her secrete universe, she was revealed. 

Molly was looking down into Sherlock's eyes, and to their hands joined on his chest. His flesh was cool and temperate when caressed by the breeze, but where he held her hands and where they contacted his skin, he burned with energy and vibration. 

Her eyes feasted hungrily on his form. The strength of his shoulders and lean arms she always desired to see exposed bare for her to caress, caused her suppressed lust for him to flush her core. But it was not only her passion she felt spinning out of control. Straining and thundering like an escaped beast, the freed emotion Sherlock kept caged from her breached the walls of his heart and came for her. 

Sherlock's eyes were open and wild looking, unseeing of anything but the radiance all around him. A sensual and ancient urgency consumed, and completely possessed the primal connection of their spirits.

Euphoric and weightless, their consciousness blended and drove the desire unbound and unconstrained. Sherlock's heart beat undisciplined and unchecked by the laws of the organ. Blood had flooded his aroused flesh and left his heart to pump with more force on a depleted supply. Molly felt his connection failing and become dizzy. 

Molly was increasingly aware of the atmosphere around them and the haze of her exhilarating connection with Sherlock leaving her. Her hands were over his heart and both Sherlock and Molly were drenched in sweat. The ocean had become turbulent and the waves crashed booming around them and faded from her view. She found herself in the solarium once more. 

Molly looked down at Sherlock and saw he had lost his awareness entirely. "Sherlock!" Molly called to him and got no response from his unseeing eyes. He looked unblinking up at the midnight storm that raged above the clear glass ceiling. 

The ventricles of Sherlock's heart became unsynchronized with the atria and the frenzied ineffectual contractions pulled his strength and energy further from Molly and life. The deadly rhythm of ventricular fibrillation triggered Molly to the reality of the danger Sherlock was in. 

Molly closed her eyes and drew all the energy she possessed. Her physicians knowledge told her what she needed to do in order to save Sherlock. 

Raising her hands above Sherlock, she withdrew the erratic and frenzied electrical impulse overwhelming Sherlock's heart. Molly's hands clapped together above her head and she glowed with the power she now possessed. Within her own heart, she felt their energies struggle to claim victory and become the dominant rhythm: the sure and steady beat of her life sustaining heart, or the hysteric and fatal confusion of Sherlock's.

Gaining momentum, and growing exponentially, Molly crashed her hands down on Sherlock's chest. She let out a furious scream and drove the electrical shock into his heart like a lightening bolt.


	7. A Heart Saved

Sherlock's entire body spasmed when the impulse contracted through his body. The brilliant white light behind his eyes was becoming darker. His gasping breaths were now his own and the resumed burden of respiration was labor some to his body. Opening his eyes, Sherlock looked over to Molly. 

She stood two feet back from where Sherlock lay catching his breath. Her white shirt clung to the sweat on her heaving chest and she held her hands suspended up between them. There was an expression of shock and amazement on Molly's face that was mirrored on Sherlock's.

The intermittent drops of rain pattered high above on the glass ceiling, recalling them to their surroundings. Sherlock raised himself to a sitting position with an ease of strength he had not felt in ten years. By the look on her face, Sherlock knew Molly was in uncharted waters: a powerful vessel finding itself adrift. With the same fluidity of rejuvenated vitality, Sherlock stepped off of the table. He took the white silken sheet with him and tied a swift knot at his hip. 

Molly seemed still to be frozen in place by the first resounding words spoken in her solarium, so instead of blurting out all the thoughts and questions whirling around his mind, Sherlock took Molly's hand and led her down the stairs and across the wet stone floor.

The glass door closed behind them and they stood silent for a moment in the cavernous stone hallway. The air was cool and dry on their skin, easing the heat of their bodies.

Sherlock spoke first, still respecting the hush of the passage way, "Molly, what just happened?" Feeling that words he spoke to her now had a strange dialect, he took her hands. "What just happened?" he asked once more. His voice was again his own. 

"That was," and she paused, searching for a term for this entirely new level. "That was uncontaminated synthesis," Molly said with awe as she looked in his eyes. 

Sherlock stepped into her space, placed one hand behind the low curve of her spine, while the other moved up her back and curled around her torso. He pulled Molly hungrily to his body. "I want more," he said with eagerness in his deep voice.

"Sherlock," Molly said and steeled her own desire for more. "Your heart, I almost lost it," and the realization of how close she came to losing him constricted her voice. "I've never taken a subject's heart before, but you. I had to, it was--we were out of control. I..."

"I gave it to you," Sherlock interrupted Molly with a voice loud enough to ripple through her core. "You freed it," he dropped his voice to a whisper and embraced her. 

Those words warmed her to the very day they first met, as if the echo finally reached them years in the past. 

Molly wrapped her arms around Sherlock and she could feel his warm breath on her skin when he tucked his face into her neck. She could not resist the contact they both needed. Their hearts beat quicker with the proximity of the other held so close. 

Once out of the solarium, they could now feel the passage of time. Molly reluctantly pulled away. Sherlock could not remove his eyes from her, feeling now a desire to always keep her in his vision. Molly held Sherlock's hand and led him to the front of the studio.

Walking down the hallway with Molly, Sherlock now knew the cause of her change. He could feel it in himself. Each step he took, he walked taller. His spine carried him straighter, more so even than before. His mind now enlightened to a new energy, an ancient and ethereal artifact yet undiscovered by the rest of the world. A light that was beginning to outshine the darkness inside of him. 

Molly sat Sherlock down in the seat he occupied earlier that evening and she took her own behind the desk. Sherlock's hair was wild and damp, the flesh covering his invigorated muscles was pimpled with goosebumps, and he tried in vain to mimic her composure. He looked like a man who had found a newer and more alluring addiction. Sherlock attempted to wait patiently, but he squirmed when she spoke.

"Sherlock," Molly said gaining momentum in harnessing her self-composure, which was difficult while a disheveled, physically energized, and recently enlightened Sherlock twitched in his seat at the sound of her voice. "We will make your next appointment. When that is done, you will go home and rest. And I will do the same. We were gone for three hours, that normally requires about six hours of recovery, though after what we just discovered, probably more like ten or twelve."

Sherlock started when he realized it was now nine thirty; he thought only an hour had passed. He had so many questions, could she bend time too? "How could have that only been three hours?" Sherlock said disbelieving. "Molly, it felt like I experienced an eternity! Can you...?"

Molly cut him off. She had begun to feel the first signs of exhaustion. "Sherlock, please. I can't answer your questions, yet. If we are to do this again I have to process and practice," Molly said and began looking in her appointment book. "Next Friday at eight o'clock in the evening. We will start slower; each energy I've learned to assume from my subjects has taken at least three sessions and what we almost did, how you almost..." She paused and looked powerfully into his eyes. "When we get there again, I will not let you be in danger while I take your heart."

"You do that with your other clients too?" Sherlock asked a bit hurt.

"The breathing, the vision, the tissue and bone manipulation, yes." Molly answered patiently, deep down delighting at the jealousy in his voice. She walked elegantly around around the desk and he stood to meet her.

"Your heart was the first, and only one I've taken," Molly whispered and Sherlock closed his eyes when the soft heat of her voice grazed his cheek. For the last time that evening, Molly froze the moment. She kissed her lips lightly to the hallow of his cheek, and lingered there, enjoying the warmth of his skin and rough stubble of his five o'clock shadow.

When Sherlock could open his eyes, he expected he would see Molly's face close to his because he could still feel the fire from her lips on his cheek. But she was gone and the lights had been dimmed. 


	8. Baker Street

When Sherlock exited the cab now in front of 221 Baker Street, his limbs felt sluggish and heavy. Thirst and exhaustion possessed his mind. As he ascended the stairs, the slow movements of his legs dragged time to a crawling pace. He leaned in the doorway to gather the energy required to carry his body down the hallway to his bedroom. 

John raised his attention from the blog entry he was updating when he heard a weakened sigh coming from the door. Sherlock was slouched against the doorframe and saw John staring at him. Sherlock's hair was tousled and damp, his eyes were dark and impaired. The coat he wore seemed to be pulling him to the floor with non proportional mass and gravity. 

When he saw strength giving away in Sherlock's knees, John vaulted from his chair. He caught Sherlock in time to save them both from a collision with the floor. 

"Sherlock!? What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Sherlock heard John's echoing voice. His vision was tunneling and he tried to tell John he was uninjured and alleviate the worry he sensed in John's voice. 

"I'm...John, I'mmm....." but Sherlock was unable to finish. He looked into John's eyes and smiled at the sense of safety they gave him, despite the worry they held. Sherlock's conscious fell into the refuge of John's arms and passed out. 

"Sherlock!" John yelled when Sherlock went limp in his arms. "Christ," he said as he laid Sherlock gently on the ground and began a rapid head-to-toe assessment of Sherlock's body. John moved his fingers through Sherlock's hair and over his scalp looking for lumps and lacerations. Finding none, he continued his palpations along Sherlock's neck and cervical spine. The muscles felt fluid and stable, the vertebra he could feel were solid and without any step-offs. He brought his fingers to the carotid artery in Sherlock's throat and felt a steady slow pulse. 

"No tachycardia, good. So not an overdose, then," John thought to himself with relief. He lifted one of Sherlock's eye lids and saw the pupil contract appropriately to the kitchen light. "And likely no brain trauma," John affirmed to himself as he checked the pupillary response of Sherlock's other unseeing eye.

Feeling the urgency of a potential thoracic or abdominal injury, John pulled open Sherlock's shirt, caring nothing for the torn buttons. A first glance of Sherlock's chest revealed no blood, puncture wound, or lacerations. The dehydrated skin clung tightly to Sherlock's lean form and he saw only the scars of the wounds Sherlock had survived in the past. 

John examined and probed Sherlock's collarbones, chest wall, and abdomen. Again, no signs of trauma. A frisk and manipulation of Sherlock's legs told John they also were in perfect order. Nothing seemed to be wrong except an overall state of dehydration and likely hypoglycemia given Sherlock's erratic eating habits. 

John stood and retrieved from the refrigerator a half full bottle of orange juice. "Sherlock!" John shouted in Sherlock's ear and roughly shook his shoulders. Sherlock's head fell sideways and he mumbled in lethargic agitation. John grabbed Sherlock's jaw and slapped him hard on the face. "Damn it Sherlock, you bloody idiot!" 

John grabbed the lapels of Sherlock's jacket and hauled his limp form to a sitting position against the wall. Sherlock's eyes fluttered and through half open eyelids he saw John in a blurred and blackened haze. 

Sherlock felt the cold rim of the bottle placed on his dry lips and John's steady hand tilting his head back. Invigorated by the sweet citrus smell, Sherlock gulped at the jug. Sherlock's sudden awareness surprised John as he watched him finish the roughly half a liter of orange juice. 

Panting and dropping his hands and the jug, Sherlock wheezed, "More, John. I'm so thirsty." Again, John sprung to the refrigerator an grabbed two unopened bottles of water. Sherlock weakly gripped the fresh bottle and failed even to open the cap. John reached out and completed the simple task and Sherlock downed the bottle, slopping water over his stubbled chin and onto his bare chest. "More, John I need more water," Sherlock said with a rasping voice.

"No, Sherlock," John said as he gripped Sherlock's jacket and bodily pulled him to a standing position, supporting Sherlock's weight against the wall with his own body. "If you are THAT dehydrated, you have to take it slowly," John said with irritation at Sherlock's basic inability to even keep himself hydrated. He threw Sherlock's arm over his shoulder and limped him down the hallway.

John sat Sherlock down on the edge of his bed and began to remove Sherlock's jacket and now ruined and wet shirt. Sherlock's eyes closed and he swayed and wavered, but he remained upright when John fed his arms out through the shirtsleeves. "Where have you been, Sherlock? What's going on?" John asked curiously, relieved now he knew there was no immediate danger to Sherlock's health.

"I...I had an appointment," Sherlock replied lethargically. "Her appointment canceled and I took it." Even in his delirious state, Sherlock remembered the conditions he agreed to, and fearing the possibility of never having another experience with Molly should she discover he said too much, Sherlock looked away from John and to the bottle of water John had sat on the bedside table. 

John slapped Sherlock's hand away when he reached for the bottle and pushed his shoulder down so Sherlock not-so-gently collapsed onto the neatly made bed. "For a case?" John asked skeptically. "We don't have a case on right now," John continued while he removed Sherlock's shoes and swung his legs fully onto the bed. John sat down on the side of the bed and felt again at Sherlock's carotid artery; slow and steady, John felt the pulse slow as Sherlock fell asleep. 

John sat back down at his desk and blankly stared at his screen. He mentally reviewed Sherlock's symptoms, and the circumstances of the evening. With a sinking in his gut, he looked quickly to Sherlock's open door with stunned realization. 

Molly. He had canceled his appointment with her this evening short notice when Harry had reached out and wanted to talk tonight over dinner. After his first appointment with Molly, he was left in the same incapacitated state. "He found out...he finally found out and she made him a client," John thought disbelievingly.


	9. Reflection

Molly did not think she had the strength to shower or even change her clothing when she returned home. She reserved the last sparkle of energy to rehydrate herself and remove her sweat soaked clothing. After each of her appointments, a soothing tiredness and mild thirst always followed, but never had she experienced an energy like her and Sherlock found. The exhaustion she now felt was unprecedented. 

She placed the empty glass on her bedside table and and relaxed into the cloudy softness of her down comforter, delighting at the coolness of the blanket on her flushed skin. Closing her eyes, Molly reflected on the place she took Sherlock, but really more like where he took her. For each of her subjects had a unique destination for their sessions, and for each appointment, they returned back to the subjects specific space. 

Mycroft took her to a vast library with shelves stocked with all the books that were ever written. Pillars two hundred feet high with the magnitude and strength of the Pantheon columns supported an ethereal and golden stained glass ceiling. Dr. Jordan took her to the summit of an endless and dynamic mountain range. There, the breeze was swift and brisk: polishing and sharpening the blue of the sky, the green freshness of the vibrant mountain grass, and the granite of the mammoth peaks. 

But John's space she had favored above the others, that is until she discovered Sherlock's. John took her to a river flowing dark, clear, and deep, rolling with haste to an immortal and infinite ocean in the foggy distance. It was always raining a soft misty drizzle and the gray storm hung low above them, swallowing the black mountains that was the source of the invigorated, rushing river.

John's breath and body surrendered more quickly and with less struggle than any of her subjects before Sherlock. Her theory was that the humidity and moisture of John's atmosphere allowed for an abundant medium that conducted more wholly the energy between them. Also, she felt in him a likeness for the disquiet and a distant pulse, eagerly drumming toward an exhilarating and intoxicating risk. After sessions with John, they both felt a tranquil control over the willingness to bear the weight of their restlessness. 

John's payment had been friendship. When his sessions began, they both were lonely and powerless to do anything about their weightlessness in the presence of Sherlock's gravity. Molly had at the time only two subjects. She asked John to be her third when she felt in him the bond they shared over her desire for Sherlock's emotions and John's desperation for his friendship and family.

Out of all her clients, John was the only one who offered her friendship for his fee; his was the only connection she valued high enough for it to be the perfect exchange. They never mentioned aloud their feelings about Sherlock when they met for coffee or a movie, but inside the solarium together, they privately shared each others torment. Alleviating the burden knowing another shares the load. 

Sherlock's space was a greatness of atmosphere and substance unfelt and incomprehensible for the human brain to fathom. The glowing clouds and gentle waves around her feet, moved in a motionless way only the brushstrokes of master painter could represent. It was the most beautiful place she had ever been to in the transcendental or physical worlds. And when she felt his wild heart relinquish to her control, the power of his desire crashed open the cages he had built and sought to consume her. 

The recklessness of his lust for connection was juvenile and inexperienced. Which each frantic heart beat he gave to Molly, he madly sought within her the intoxicatingly sensual feminine heat that would serve his own lecherous need. 

Molly now began to realize her mistakes. She underestimated Sherlock's spiritual and emotional ability. His exceptional instinct and mastery over his consciousness engrossed her example and zealously delighted in his free and youthful awakening. They had shared exhilarating heart beats pulsing joy and euphoria within each other. But his energy had begun to seek more, insatiable and crazed. That was when he gave her his heart, begged her to take the vital responsibility. He could no longer support his frenzied heart beat when his possessed arousal heedlessly sought the source of the primal fever he felt growing within them. 

Never had a subject offered their heart, and Molly was unprepared to handle one so precious as Sherlock's. In the wild and untamed beats that she did give to Sherlock, she felt love and emotion he had hidden behind a dark black shield. Love for his family, for his friends, for John and her. 


	10. Reparation

"Hi, Molly. Is there anyway  
we could bump up my appointment  
to Wednesday sometime? I don't  
think I can wait that long to go back.  
Hope you are having a good day."

It was eight thirty in the morning when the buzz of Molly's mobile phone woke her. Molly sleepily rubbed her eyes and read the text and the request brought a smile to her face. 

"I understand and I'm glad you  
asked, John. I'll see you  
Wednesday at seven."

The shower revived her and she let her charged thoughts wonder while the therapeutic water streamed over body. Moving John's appointment to just a few days before she would see Sherlock again, would allow her to better control her emotions for Sherlock, having just pacified them. She was going to have to master Sherlock's impatient energy and slow them down. The unconstrained connection they made last night was the most thrilling thing Molly had ever experienced, but without learning a balance she knew she could lose him.

The storm had moved through and a chilly, refreshing breeze danced the changing leaves around the park. Molly felt a pleasant need to be in the sunshine and decided an invigorating walk would help her further process and review Sherlock's appointment. 

It was twelve thirty when she popped in to café to warm her feet and satiate the hunger now twisting her stomach. Sitting by the window, Molly cradled her hot chocolate in her cold hands and the instant warming power of the mug echoed the memory of Sherlock's skin in the solarium. Molly turned her blushing cheeks to the sunlight and beamed right back at it. 

Molly regarded the blue skies and took joy in its color. In the same moment however, she hoped the rains will have returned by Wednesday for John's appointment: the connections between her and her subjects were always facilitated when there was more moisture in the air. 

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she chose to ignore it, wanting instead to cling to the lofty vision of the worlds Sherlock and John had created. But her pocket vibrated again, and again, and again in rapid succession. By the fourth text alert, Molly now thought there may be an emergency given the persistence. 

"Molly."

"Molly. Where are you?"

"Molly!"

"I need to see you."

"Meet me at your studio.  
30 minutes--  
1315, Molly."

Molly laughed out loud. She had been waiting for him to wake and wondered how long a recovery he would require. She looked again at her watch and calculated that he had been asleep for roughly fourteen hours. She chuckled when the typing dots told her Sherlock was going to send another text. They stopped and disappeared. Reappeared, disappeared and were vanished repeatedly.

All of her clients had contacted her immediately after their first appointments, and she was looking forward to what she would get from Sherlock. The comments from her other subjects had been ones of awe, thanks, and requests to schedule the next appointment. True to his form, Sherlock jumped straight to the point, even if it was a bit insistent and boyishly arrogant.

"Good afternoon, Sherlock.  
Are you feeling ok, did you   
drink enough water last   
night?"

"Molly, I was practically a  
raisin when John found me."

Molly laughed at the scene in her mind of John and Sherlock when he returned to Baker Street in his exhausted state. She had not thought about the possibility that John would be home. 

"It is too soon to have another  
appointment, Sherlock. Neither  
you nor I are ready. I'm glad   
John was there, I'll bet  
he knew just what to do."

She smirked at her hidden quip. Of course, John would know what to do; he had experienced the same feeling after his first time too.

"Are you on your way, Molly?"

She was. Excitement had begun to shine inside her when she received Sherlock's first text, and she was anxious to see the transformations in him--and how his brilliant mind was coping with something science could not explain. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

She had only just folded her jacket over the back of the chair and sat down when Sherlock came striding through the door. His powerful physique carried his agile purpose across the floor. Sherlock's dark suit was flawless and visible only when the momentum of his body swayed open the front of his black coat. Sherlock reached up, and in one swift movement his scarf was off. His hair had been freshly cut and the over grown curls she held last night were shorter and professionally styled.

His vigor and strength surprised her when he grabbed the simple bamboo chair and picked it up as though it were made of balloons. Without saying a word, he took it around to her side of the desk and sat facing her. His back was straight and poised. Crossing his legs, he regarded her with intense anticipation. The long lines and sharp angles of his body were stunningly masculine and distracting. 

Molly acted without thinking; she froze the moment and held him still as stone. She moved the time so that she experienced a moment of eternity admiring and memorizing the image of his powerfully elegant body.

"I am not here for the urgency of another appointment," Sherlock spoke in a deep and assured voice. "Although I now feel constantly a magnetic pull inside of me ever since we parted last night. It seemed each time I turned around your north swung the compass needle within me," Sherlock said eloquently.

In the past, her subjects had tried to describe the unique feeling they get after their appointments. On the whole though, the general consensus was total mind and body restfulness. What Sherlock described was a maintained connection of energy despite distance apart. He felt her gravity despite being apart. 

"Now that you are so close," Sherlock faltered and in that hesitation, Sherlock's mind wavered into his mind palace and he stood before her closed doors. A warm beam of sunlight was shining through the window of her new room and the steel door beside it remained resolutely unchanged. Sherlock cleared his throat, "I understand the limitations of my body, if not so much my mind anymore. Another appointment in my current state would end me."

Molly smiled coyly at his boiling energy of unrest hidden under the guise of his crisp and polished appearance. 

"I've come to offer my recompense, if you will accept it," Sherlock said with a hint of excitement accenting his controlled voice. He had not contemplated until now, how he would feel if she accepted and if it actually worked. She had no real reason trust him to be responsible or reliable before yesterday: he had show up late or rudely unannounced and leave a mess in his wake. Would she entrust him now his world is changed? His hands began to shake when it occurred to him she could possibly say no.

 


	11. Offer, Accepted

Molly's morning thoughts had enchanted her attention away from anything close to that of payment. He had come to pay a bill, as if he were paying a clerk at the grocery store. Molly's stomach sank to imagine him saying their connection was just a traded commodity. Doubt shadowed the rays of hope carrying her new connection with Sherlock.

But rippling memories of last night in the stone hallway reminded Molly of his words when he embraced her. "I want more," he had growled in her ear. Molly's assurance grew when the glow she had seen in Sherlock last night began grow inside of her and pacified her doubt with an exponential warmth that flushed her cheeks. 

Emboldened by the blush that reached Molly's chest, Sherlock made his offer. 

"What happened last night was a feeling unlike any high I've know. This awareness of you has abducted me but I find myself surrendering...willingly," Sherlock said and he remembered Irene snaring him with involuntary possession. "I have never allowed myself to be under anyone's control in any context of my body and mind, viewing those that yielded to another's power as weak. I believe we found the singular exception." 

Finding his stride he continued as though he were dictating to John. "Never to my extensive and exceptional knowledge, has anyone been able to accomplish what it is you do."

When Molly was first developing her unique ability over a subject, she tore through medical, science, and psychology journals looking for a reference to what was happening. Unsure of what even to call the experience, Molly struggled to find any sort of mention to her new ability. 

"I came to that conclusion as well," Molly confirmed, waiting for him to go on.

"Excellent," Sherlock said excitedly. "It follows then, that if you alone have discovered this skill, you have never experienced what it is you do for your clients." Sherlock grinned at his brilliant idea and her stunned silence. 

Molly felt like she was standing at the edge of a soaring cliff, unable to see through the mist below. Her self possession forged protesting shields that struck against his anticipated words. 

Sherlock leaned toward her and extended his hands, no longer concerned about hiding the emotion in his eyes. Her nearness had made his body warm, and he felt his heart quickening with each moment. "Show me," he said, "Teach me how so that I can relieve you."

John had tried to explain his experience and what he felt while in the solarium, "It's a release of...my awareness?" John had said. "As if I were releasing a burden to you." It all sounded phenomenal, but she never thought to teach someone else to do it so she could know what it felt like to succumb to another's hold. Truthfully, Molly did not think anyone had her unique appreciation for the body which allowed her power over it. 

Sherlock was the living proof that she was wrong, and he was right in front of her, prepared to be the haven in which she could anchor herself.

Impatient with her pause and worried she may deny him, Sherlock moved to his knees and pleaded his case. "I can do it. I promise you, Molly. Please? This is all I can offer, I have nothing else to give you that will ever be enough," Sherlock said, and Molly saw a sheen of sweat appear on his questioning brow. His eyes were bright with innocence and the promise of adventure.

One dark curl clung to Sherlock's forehead and she reached out to tuck it back. He allowed Molly's fingers to continue through his hair and her touch compelled him close his eyes in pleasure. He reveled in new realization that he wanted another person to touch him and leaned into her hand. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Sherlock proved to be an impatient and somewhat insubordinate pupil. Molly tried to describe in level of detail he insisted upon, but his analytical questions received no answer. She was explaining to him that he must start without touching the subject, and she would inform him no further until he agreed to start at the beginning. 

He had moved his chair in front of the desk as it had been before: ready for his lesson. Sherlock sat back with his arms folded with insubordinate defense. "How would it not be easier for me to assume someone's breath if I weren't touching them?" Sherlock challenged. 

"It's about the internal connection, Sherlock," Molly insisted. "After the subject's eyes are closed, you are vanished from their visual presence. The body will not allow control if you can not show their conscious you will be responsible for their trust." She could tell he was skeptical, but this was a condition Sherlock had to understand in order to for him to guide his subject. Molly nervously thrilled at the fact that it was her mind and body he would have to convince.

"Once I manage to gain trust," Sherlock said, reluctantly conceding, "how do I overcome the instinctive struggle to avoid suffocation?" Sherlock asked as he remembered the frantic battle she won over his sympathetic nervous system. 

"Practice," Molly said unhelpfully with a teasing jeer. "Once you are proficient, you will be able to focus past the breath. If you can't maintain the subject's breath with your own, they will fall away from you before you ever show them to their sanctum."

Anxiousness was getting the better of Sherlock. He had been in her presence for only fifteen minutes, but the restlessness she was stirring in him was becoming impossible not to act upon. Hearing Molly talk about and reference moments from the previous night while trying to instruct him how to go about accomplishing "the connection," was strengthening a new force inside of him. 

Sherlock looked at her lips and licked his own, he saw how her light woolen shawl held her body and jealously wanted to tear it away. He could not understand how Molly even kept it on: Sherlock had shed his coat and suit jacket after five minutes after being in her presence. The sleeves of his pressed shirt were rolled up to his elbows but despite this, the expensive fabric clung to his back with perspiration. 

Needing to move his body and put some space between themselves before he lost his control and dragged her back to the solarium, Sherlock stood and faced the glass store front and steepled his hands below his chin. 

Patiently, Molly waited. He stood still long enough she was not compelled to freeze the moment. The shirt he wore clung to the wetness of his back and wrapped the muscles underneath. The structures of Sherlock's legs were visible under his tailored pants and Molly itched to move her hands over them once more. 

Before Molly allowed herself to follow that arousing line of thinking any further, she stood and put on her jacket. "You can practice during our appointment at the end of the week if you feel you are ready," Molly said, breaking the energized silence. 

At the sound of her voice, Sherlock turned and watched her walk toward the door. His blood eagerly pulsed through his veins and flushed the surface of his skin when she passed him in an attempt to get more of himself closer to her. Sherlock felt the tug in his body urging him not to lose sight of her when she walked out the door and out of sight. 


	12. Practice

Sherlock entered 221B with anxious energy and Molly's instructions whirling in his mind. "You must focus all of your attention on the body in front of you," Molly's echo whispered in his ear. "Revere the fluidity of the body's energy, structure, and complicated connections. When you feel the realization within your own self, you will know and be able to go further with the subject."

He paced in the dark kitchen, searching for what constitutes "a body's energy" and images of cellular structures, the Kreb's Cycle, SA nodes, and capillary beds of the alveoli appeared in his mind palace library. While Sherlock was reviewing the connections of the phrenic nerve and its importance in the cardiac an respiratory systems, John's snore distracted his academic preparation for the next appointment with Molly.

Irritatedly, Sherlock strode over to John's recumbent and sleeping form on the couch, but he stopped before he could drive his shoe into the corner to wake up John's imposition into his review. The epiphany came to Sherlock as he looked at John's sleeping face: here was a test subject on which he could focus his attention. 

Sherlock removed his coat and suit jacket and quietly stood over John. He remembered how he could feel Molly's hand over him and he reached out his hand twelve inches above John's chest. Sherlock noted the thin button down John was wearing and blinked rapidly when he remembered his own chest had been uncovered before Molly. When an image of Molly's body lain bare to him in the solarium flooded his mind, Sherlock let out a shuddered breath and a sink hole appeared in his diaphragm falling endlessly into his pelvis.

Flexing his hand rapidly and shaking his head, Sherlock admonished himself: he would never be able to control a subject if he could not even control his own focus. "Was that part of the "realization" Molly was referring to?" Sherlock whispered aloud, but John did not stir.

Sherlock took three calming breaths and slowed his heart rate. John lay with his hands behind his head, cradling it so his face was turned directly to the ceiling. John's beard was growing in from when he last shaved yesterday morning and the dark sandy stubble was beginning to lie flat against his jaw and down his neck. The faded shirt was stretched taught across John's chest, so when Sherlock's dexterous fingers flicked the buttons, the fabric recoiled slightly. 

Sherlock folded the sides of the shirt open, careful not to allow the fabric to trace John's skin. The steady rise and fall of John's smooth chest was disturbed only by the soft ripple of his thoracic aorta pulsing with each slow heart beat. The bullet wound scar was pulled tight over the trained muscles of John's chest and shoulder. Sherlock darkened when he thought of the track the bullet tore through John's flesh, only a few inches away from taking his life.

A sudden rush of sadness overwhelmed Sherlock and his focus was disrupted for the second time. Molly had told Sherlock that her appreciation for the body in both states, dead and alive allowed her to discover the body's inner energy and ultimately, control it. Sherlock had seen countless dead bodies and delighted in the evidence they provided to find the cause of death: sometimes subtle and hidden within the blood and tissue, and sometimes obvious in their deformity or trauma.

Sherlock deleted the image of John's gravestone, ruffled his expertly styled hair, and resolved himself to only focus on John's "living energy." This time, Sherlock moved both of his hands over John and held them close enough to feel heat from his body. In and out, John's chest rose closer to Sherlock's hands and passively recoiled. Sherlock obsessed his mind on John's breathing and soon he was able to move his hands in the rhythm of John's chest rise and fall. 

Now engrossed in the tempo, Sherlock closed his eyes tightly and thought about the glowing oxygen molecules he saw suspended in the solarium, and visualized the path down John's trachea in into the very distal bronchioles of his lungs. Guiding the molecules through membrane and tissue, Sherlock now understood that for this breath, he was delivering the oxygen directly into John's system. John, however sputtered when the rhythm of his unwavering breathing was interrupted by the imprecise and hitched breath Sherlock just gave him. 

As though electrocuted, Sherlock backed away from John in shock. John had turned his head toward Sherlock and shifted his hips, but remained asleep. Motivated by his success, Sherlock's heart beat unadvisedly with eagerness to try again. He was sweating, but paid this no mind even though he was still not completely rehydrated from last night. 

Once again, Sherlock moved his hands over John and easily fell into his rhythm. Feeling the pull of air into John's body, Sherlock followed--determined to go further. Sherlock kept his eyes open this time and saw to his surprise, a single glowing molecule emerged from John's chest. It moved over John's body, stopped under Sherlock's hands and begin to burn. 

Sweat was dripping down Sherlock's face and neck and John began panting shallow, ineffectual huffs of breath. The heat of the molecules glowing energy was intensifying and John stopped breathing; Sherlock panicked. 

He was out of control, his arrogant inexperience had spurred him further than he ought to have gone. John's body had sensed the welcoming surrender and blindly yielded to Sherlock. Without thinking, Sherlock knew there was only one thing he could do in order to save John. Sherlock pressed his hands onto John's chest and screamed with the effort to breathe he cast into John...however the effort need not have been wasted: John allowed Sherlock control willingly.

Stunned in the moment, Sherlock saw again and again, John's chest rise and fall. Reassured, emboldened, and exhilarated, Sherlock took honor in relieving John of a burden. Sherlock knew John was troubled sometimes, Sherlock was aware also that he was the cause for the majority of John's distress. With each strong breath Sherlock took with John, Sherlock could feel his energy flow through his flesh and into John, freeing John of the oppressive worry for Sherlock's safety. 

Sherlock took pride in supporting John and felt in his spirit a fraternal connection of ancestry, ancient and primitive as the first tribes of the earth. Sherlock moved his vision from the image of his powerful hands sharing kinship with the man beneath them and watched the pulse in John's neck, thrilling for the life in him, enlivened in John's thriving presence.

Distracted by a cool mist all around him, Sherlock looked up. 

He laughed in delight, whooping in success when he saw where he was. 

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John opened his eyes the second he knew that he was in his sanctum, and although he would have thought he would be terrified at finding himself in his sanctum with anybody apart from Molly, John was unconcerned: it was Sherlock that brought him here and Sherlock would never fail him. John's river flowed ever on to the ocean beyond, but the storm clouds above him were now lined in a rosy brilliance of sun that remained suspended low over the distant sea. 

John watched Sherlock's amazed expression each time a breath was given. Enthusiasm, pleasure, and gratification were all shining in John, heated by Sherlock's freed emotion for him. Sherlock threw his head back and yelled out in joy, laughing as if he finally understood a simple joke that had tricked him for years. Innocent and flushed, Sherlock looked as if years of mistakes, confusion, and isolation were vanished from his past.

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After a moment or hours, Sherlock looked down at his friend, a chuckle lingered when he saw that John's eyes were open. John grinned, thrust out his hand and Sherlock seized it, pulling John off the table and into an embrace. They slapped each other on the back and laughed together as if they were two brothers that has survived a war. 

John pulled away from Sherlock first. Holding Sherlock at arms length, John spoke for the first time in his sanctum. 

"Sherlock, I..." but before John could finish, Sherlock began to shake and John saw the color leave his face. The sound of the river was becoming muted and the mountains were fading. John felt the familiar responsibility of breathing returning to him and he rose from the couch in a panic. "Sherlock!" John screamed to the silent walls of the sitting room.


	13. Double Booked

John looked down and saw Sherlock lying prostrate between the couch and coffee table, his eyes were wide with elation and trepidation. Sherlock's hair, face, and shirt were drenched with sweat and he panted as though he had just sprinted a mile. John wiped his own brow and tried to sound calm, "Sherlock...Sherlock, what did you do?"

Sherlock did not respond, his vision locked in an unseeing stare of amazement. John waved his hand through Sherlock's line of sight, but Sherlock just blinked unaffectedly. Rising from the couch, John felt his invigorated energy move his muscles with rejuvenated strength. He strode to the kitchen and fetched two Gatorade bottles. Last night John had gone to the store for anything that would replenish Sherlock's electrolytes and instructed Sherlock to drink at least one bottle when he woke up, but evidently those instructions had been ignored. 

John sat Sherlock against the edge of the couch and for the second time in two days, he supported Sherlock's head and neck while he helped Sherlock drink. When the liquid was almost gone, Sherlock had roused enough to hold up his own head. His lethargic eyes found John's and his lips slowly smirked in a knowing and conspiring grin. 

Sherlock had just summoned enough strength to speak but before the first word formed on his lips, John slapped his hand over Sherlock's mouth and held it steadfast against Sherlock's weak attempt to free his mouth. He moved his face close to Sherlock and whispered intently in his ear, "'The service provided will not be discussed with anyone, in any context out side of this Studio.'" 

The direct quote from the document they both signed ringed in his ears and Sherlock frightened at the thought of the consequence for breaching the contract. John watched Sherlock's expression change as he realized John also knew what could be lost. 

Without removing his hand John said in a hushed growl, "You will finish that second bottle, go straight to the shower, then meet me in the kitchen. Do not say a word," he finished threateningly. 

John sat silently at the table across from an empty seat, a third bottle of Gatorade, and a plain ham and cheese sandwich he made for Sherlock. The water from the shower had been running for only two minutes before it was shut off and John scoffed in surprise: Sherlock's showers usually ran for twenty minutes or more. The magnitude of what just happened made it difficult for John to think about what to do next and he would have appreciated at least a few more minutes to consider their precarious situation.

Sherlock was now one of Molly's subjects, that John was now sure of, but he could not fathom Sherlock attempting to do what she does after only one appointment. Frankly, the arrogance of it angered John, and how dare Sherlock test the power over him without permission! The fact that the experience was incredible and completely unbelievable, was another issue entirely. 

Sherlock came out of the bathroom with a towel tied hastily around his waist, hair dripping, and beads of water still running down his lithe body. Without a word, Sherlock sat down at the table, picked up the sandwich, and followed John's unspoken command to eat. Within a minute the plate and bottle of Gatorade were empty. 

John and Sherlock stared intensely at each other for several pregnant minutes, each one cautiously planning what and how much they could say without breaching the contract.

"Wednesday, seven o'clock," John finally said. He worried if he uttered one more word it would be too much. 

"Obviously," Sherlock pompously replied and he stood up from the table. "See you then, John," and he turned and walked down the hallway. John rolled his eyes when Sherlock removed the towel around his waist only halfway down the hallway to his bedroom and began drying his hair .

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John did not see Sherlock in the time before Wednesday, though he knew Sherlock was home, eating, and drinking properly because the supply of food in the fridge and pantry was incrementally becoming less. He agreed with Sherlock's strategy to avoid contact: if either one should begin talking, the topic would be discussed and their time with Molly over. 

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Wednesday evening came with a heavy downpour and Molly delighted at her and John's luck. Molly turned her face up to the storm and her smile disgruntled an old man. As she passed him on the sidewalk, he pulled his coat up further over his head and grumbled.

Before Molly changed out of her bulky cold-weather cloths, she adjusted the thermostat that controlled the climate in the solarium and increased the temperature slightly above normal and in turn, increased humidity. She was eager to release John and feel the authority over him. Molly needed to be reminded how to maintain control over her subject and she was impatient for John's appointment and the opportunity it provided.

Sherlock stopped just before the light from the studio fell across the wet sidewalk, remaining in the shadow. He saw John had done the same on the other side of the studio, effectively shielding their presence from view of Molly's desk. 

John held his umbrella and could not help himself from grinning when he saw Sherlock. "Amateur," John chuckled. He remembered his second appointment with Molly, not bothering to protect himself from the rain thinking it helped alleviate the dehydration and the prickling anticipation. But John learned how to properly prepare his body for Molly's appointments and it was with plenty of fluid and proper nutrition--a concept of which Sherlock was completely unaware. Internally, John gave himself a point up on up Sherlock when he saw the drenched idiot in front of him.

Sherlock looked at his watch and nodded.

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Each pedestrian was blurred and made anonymous by the heavy rainfall outside, so when the two remarkable figures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson made themselves undeniably clear in her doorway at precisely seven o'clock, Molly was struck speechless.


	14. A Shift in Power

When Molly looked up from her appointment book, the shock she felt was immobilizing. Sherlock was dripping wet and wore a grin like a naughty little boy who just discovered where the cookie jar was hidden. John, however wore a hopefully innocent expression, eyes anxious for understanding. John and Sherlock cautiously walked up to Molly's desk. 

"What is going on here?" Molly asked with a demanding edge in her voice. She rose from her chair to meet their eyes and when Molly stood up straight, she could not help the surge of power that weighted her words and flexed the energy around her. John and Sherlock felt the turbulent pulse when she spoke and turned to each other for guidance on how to approach a cornered lion. 

"Molly," Sherlock began but when she locked her eyes on him, he balked. "Molly...I, well, John and I..." Sherlock attempted, but John cut him off.

"He overcame me, Molly," John said simply. "I took him to the river." Molly's eyes widened and she gasped. It never occurred to Molly that the ability could happen outside of the solarium, though she never thought to try, and here stood John telling her that Sherlock took him only a few days after his first experience with her. 

"It may seem impossible, Molly, and I don't think I could have gotten nearly as far as I did had been anyone else other than John. It was almost effortless when his body recognized it was me." Sherlock said quickly. He felt a wave of connection with John and when Sherlock turned to look at him, John had already felt it too and was grinning at Sherlock.

It was the first time John consciously felt the power coming from someone other than Molly and it intrigued his spirit to discover the untrained energy emanating from Sherlock. His heart began to beat faster when he remembered the new exhilaration he experienced when Molly's well trained power first took him. She was calm and trusting when John's panicked release succumbed to her control. However, when Sherlock's novice energy took him, it felt young, reckless, and free, like two childhood friends sharing the feeling of immortality and adventure when they grow together and join the world as men.

Molly watched the two look at each other and gaped when she felt the wild energy escaping Sherlock and move venturously into John. Sweat was being to bead on Sherlock's brow and Molly realized that Sherlock had unknowingly froze John and was unable to release the amateur connection. John's eyes were closing but before Sherlock lost John entirely, Molly yelled, "Sherlock!"

John's knees shook and when they gave out, Sherlock caught John's arm, pulled it over his shoulder, and eased John into the chair in front of Molly's desk. Molly rushed over to John and lifted her hand to his face. "Just how far did you get, Sherlock?" Molly with asked with concern. 

"Not far enough. But you can show me...with John!" Sherlock said excitedly. 

"What?" Molly and John said together. 

"Yes! It's perfect!" Sherlock said eagerly. "John won't be in any danger from my inexperience because you will be there with us. You can guide me, Molly."

John stood and silently with his eyes, Sherlock asked John permission and got his answer. "What do you say, Molly?" John asked and the prospect boiled within him and Sherlock. 

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The rain pounded heavily against the clear glass ceiling of the solarium and rivaled the rhythm of Molly's heart. Dewy beads of moisture ran parallel with the rain outside as it streaked down the glass walls. Molly had calmly told John and Sherlock to go change, and while she waited for them in the solarium; excitement and anticipation surged in her mind for what she just agreed to. Molly closed her eyes and calmed her breathing so when they entered, she could maintain control over whatever may happen.

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Sherlock and John were out of their jackets before they even reached the washroom door. While John unbuttoned his shirt and Sherlock toed off his shoes, John said suspiciously, "Why would you say I'd be in danger?...What happened when you first went in with Molly?"

Sherlock's desire for Molly-all of Molly-surged in him when he remembered just exactly what happened a few nights ago. The release of body, the feeling of connection, the freedom of his dormant need for the sensual savagery of Molly's feminine energy. 

"I said you won't be in danger from my novice power, John," Sherlock answered. "But we lost control, John," Sherlock said with intrigue as he handed John the white silk robe and removed his own shirt. "She nearly killed me," he said and coyly left it at that. Sherlock walked bare foot out of the washroom and tied a fresh silk sheet around his middle. 

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John hurried after Sherlock, clumsily knotting the robe around him and watched Sherlock round the corner down the stone hallway. "Sherlock?" John said down the corridor.

"Shh, John," Sherlock whispered as he stood silently in front of the glass door that would lead them into the solarium and John heard the echo of the first time Molly shushed him in the stone hallway. John could see apprehension disturbing Sherlock's brow and on impulse, he gripped Sherlock's shoulder and said in a whisper, "You don't have to tell me what really happened, if you want to be all mysterious." John smirked at Sherlock, "But if you get good enough at this, I'll find out eventually." And with that, John spiritedly opened the door and walked into the solarium as he had countless times before, leaving Sherlock the one to question the meaning of what was just said. 

When Sherlock closed the door behind him, he saw that John had already joined Molly on the platform, waiting for him. The moisture that clung to Sherlock's skin beaded and smoothly and rolled down the grooves of his spine. As he walked across the damp stone floor, Sherlock felt rather like a willing sacrifice, frightened but ardent to offer himself to the alter. 

Upon the platform, Sherlock stood motionless next to John and they respectfully waited for Molly's lead. She indicated John to lie down on the table and he moved without hesitation. John removed his robe, folded it neatly and placed it on the shelf under the table and when he lay down, Molly covered his lower half with the same kind of silken sheet Sherlock had tied around his waist. Anxiously, John looked to Molly, the storm above him, to Sherlock and back.

John could feel the adrenaline surge through him as the atmosphere rapidly become charged and when Molly finally moved her hands over his chest, Sherlock followed suit. John looked up and saw Sherlock and Molly locked in the vision of themselves. Heat began to build in the space between his flesh and their hands above him, and soon the intensity of of two ignited energies became unmanageable on his chest. Molly felt it, but the inexperienced energy in Sherlock was too distracted and dazzled by the power that was growing inside of him.

John was trying to surrender his breath and when Sherlock did not take control, John looked at Molly with pleading eyes. "Sherlock," Molly said clearly and he was snapped into the awareness that John was not breathing. Panic took him as it did the first time he felt the responsibility for John's breath, but Molly seized Sherlock's hands and pushed them firmly onto John's slick and still chest. Molly conducted her energy through Sherlock's hands and mercifully filled John's lungs with a deep breath she herself took. 

John's head fell down onto the soft fabric of the cushion, his eyes rolled in his head, and he felt her familiar connection move through Sherlock's hands and into him like a fluctuating gravity moving in and out of his body. 

Once again, Sherlock sensed the growing power within him and took the next breath for John. But this time, Sherlock felt the parameters of Molly's authority and responsibly continued a steady rhythm that lulled John's conscious into a senseless stupor. Molly felt John defenselessly give in to Sherlock and smiled when she witnessed their unwavering trust.

Molly looked at Sherlock with an unbelieving grin, "He didn't even fight you!" Though the words were not audibly spoken, though Sherlock heard them clear in his mind and felt her delighted endearment when shared with her the natural connection he and John shared. 

Instinctively he replied in the same silent language, "And never will he." The rumble of his internal voice moved within Molly and rippled over John's subjugate form. 

Warmed and fascinated by John's peace and Sherlock's growing skill, Molly gradually expanded Sherlock's freedom over John. 

Beneath the cradle of their joining power, John could sense their communication. It was electric and surged through him with the awareness of their connection. Sherlock and Molly however, were blind to John's acute understanding of the new energy they shared, they being too absorbed and in awe of each other's presence. 

Wicked comprehension consumed John's mind when he felt Sherlock's energy begin to pulse and shudder with the nearness of Molly and John surged erotic energy into Sherlock's core, encouraging carnal and lewd desires for a woman's evolutionary embodiment of sex. 

Inherently realizing now was the time, John assumed control over Sherlock. 

John seized Sherlock's virgin sexuality and instantly felt the frantic arousal that was blazing wild and out of control in Sherlock's mind, searching with a frenzied and long neglected instinct for copulation. Sherlock sensed John's hold and hungrily gave in to his guidance, fully committed to John's power as he focused his and Sherlock's mind and body on Molly.

Soon, their overwhelming desire for Molly superseded the compulsion to breathe and raw huffs and insufficient gulps of air moved in tandem through John and Sherlock's heaving chests. 

The lecherous and vulgar grunts of male arousal scandalously pulled Molly from her calm and collected rule over Sherlock and her feminine essence was instantly overwhelmed when Sherlock and John's crazed energies beset her own passionate and starved center. 

Her own pants of arousal and desire to consume every bit of their male purpose was now competing for the single breath they were now all vying for. 

With neither Sherlock or Molly supporting or acknowledging the requirement of oxygen, John used his last bit of influence and hypoxic awareness to surge between Molly and Sherlock. 

The intensity of John's last exploding pulse of frenzied sexual energy and primal urge for survival ricocheted off of the glass surroundings and imploded within Molly and Sherlock's minds. Before John peacefully lost consciousness, he looked lovingly into each of their astounded and flushed faces, proud and satisfied of release he had given Sherlock and Molly. 


	15. The Energy Required

Sherlock and Molly watched John collapse into the cushion and go limp. Sweat covered his flushed skin and an apnoeic sigh escaped his lips. Molly's body was trembling with the invasion of Sherlock and John's concupiscent arousal and her hands shook on John's chest.

"Sherlock..." Molly breathed out in a shuddering whisper. Where John's face was red with the amorous intensity he just freed, Sherlock's was pale and it shimmered with perspiration like rain on a marble statue. 

"Molly..." Sherlock gasped, "he, John...we..." Sherlock was unable to find the words to voice his incomprehension as blackness encroached around the edges of his vision. He faltered against the table and collapsed onto John's unresponsive body. Seeing Sherlock join John in unconsciousness sparked Molly into the awareness that the men before her were now solely dependent on her control and mercy. 

Acting on instinct, Molly's charged muscles positioned Sherlock on the table next to John, shoulder to shoulder. Molly joined their limp hands and placed them on top of John's hip. Finally, she assumed her position at the head of the table. The heat of her energy vaporized the moisture that was swirling around them, and in a cloud of steam, Molly reached out a hand to Sherlock and John. 

Her power was amplified with the new intimate and imperial power Sherlock and John had surrendered to her and Molly gripped the base of her subject's slick scalps, tilting their supplicating faces to her and the deafening storm above. 

As she delivered their saving breath, John and Sherlock gasped in unison. John fell instantly devoted to her rule, but Sherlock fought like he had the first time Molly conquered his breath. Sherlock's crazed instinct snarled and clawed at her invasion but each attempt he made to flex his diaphragm and exhale her coercive breath, he was met with the resistance of John's own respiratory muscles controlling when they would all exhale. 

Sherlock and John both opened their astonished eyes and stared wide-eyed up at Molly; John, with the thrill of joining Molly's alliance, Sherlock, with the wild insanity of a single surviving soldier defending the last free territory against the advancing enemy. Molly felt John's offered collaboration with surprise and excitement. Their shared desire for Sherlock's possessed and delirious energy shined with the reality of obtaining Sherlock's mind and body. It united them as it had when they first entered the solarium.

Together, Molly and John effortlessly overcame Sherlock's futile resistance and for the first time, John felt the dominion of another body's surrender. Molly guided John as he showed Sherlock that their combined devotion for his spirit could endure the responsibility of its custody. 

Back and forth, Molly and John steadily moved within Sherlock, allowing the oxygen to pass soothingly into his body. With each subsequent breath John and Molly gave Sherlock, he felt their possession within him growing as they wound their energies through his stirring flesh. 

Molly soon felt the pull when Sherlock and John's bodies recognized her as the vessel that would take each of them to their ethereal space. Molly looked down at their bodies and adrenaline was released into her veins, insisting her heart rate double instantly. Sherlock and John had turned to face each other though their eyes were closed tight with struggle and intensity as they fought for sole use of her power. Sweat was running off their heaving bodies and their joined hands gripped each other with crushing force, flexing every muscle to drive their own campaign for more power. Each huffing breath John took, Sherlock's body was obligated to follow. 

The display of male provocation and exertion stimulated Molly's primal urge to devour their bodies and she teased her power between them. Sherlock recognized John's river when Molly allowed John the upper hand and he almost acquiesced to John's destination, but the desire to return to his ocean with Molly pleaded for him to resist. Molly shifted to Sherlock's gravity, and John froze in awe when he saw a brief flash of a magnificent glowing ocean. 

Molly was not ready for the determination of Sherlock's desires when he recklessly released all of his energy into John and Molly. In the bombardment, John and Molly felt Sherlock's heart beating out of control when its source of function left Sherlock's body. John felt the panic in Molly and realized this is what happened before: "Molly," John spoke into her mind with urgency and sounded like he was speaking to her through a wind tunnel. "You can not take him alone again! He is too strong! He is too unstable! " 

The epiphany struck John and he suddenly opened his eyes, triumphantly grinned at Sherlock's grimacing face then locked into Molly's eyes. "Trust me Molly," John said and allowed the clarity of his voice sooth her alarm. "Do not release Sherlock when we move. I am going to sit him on the side of the table and support his back with my body," John said and as he sat up, she felt the absence of John's energy and their breath hitched when Molly and John were no longer sharing the breath. 

John sat behind Sherlock and locked his arms around his shoulders and chest while Molly moved to stand in front of Sherlock, maintaining the trance in which she held him. With both of her hands now at the base of Sherlock's skull, she gently allowed his head to tilt back and rest on John's shoulder.

When he secured Sherlock, John pressed his body against Sherlock's back and he could feel Molly would not be able to hold Sherlock much longer because his rapidly increasing heart rate was thundering against John's chest. 

"Molly," John said with excited trepidation, "come closer, place your hands on his chest, quick!" and without Molly's hands supporting his neck, Sherlock's head dropped back into John's chin and leaned limp against his neck and jaw. 

When Molly's hands covered Sherlock's heart John felt the shadow of her power pass through Sherlock hysterical heart and into his own. The waves of Sherlock and Molly's ignited energy burned deep into John and the simmering arousal and desire for something ancient swelled inside of him. John reached his hands out and grasped Molly's wrists and pulled her closer, pinning Sherlock safely within his arms and body. The complete circle of their conductive energy glowed from within Sherlock's chest and his heart coursed out of control with ineffectual spasms.

"Molly!" John voiced through the hammering echoes of Sherlock's heart, "Give me his breath and you will be able to take him!" John held one of her hands firmly against Sherlock's chest and guided the other to his exposed neck. Molly and John both held Sherlock's throat back and felt the blood flutter in his carotid artery and wind move in his trachea with each panting breath John now took for Sherlock. 

"Please, Molly! He is giving up! Take his heart!” John begged within her but she heard Sherlock's deep voice whisper John's words to the heavens. His grey unseeing eyes reflected the darkness of the storm above. 

The unbalanced contact she had with John and Sherlock would not allow her to recruit the energy John was innocently offering and Molly knew what she had to do. Wicked, power hungry lust for domination flashed in her ego, but John was faultlessly unaware of the dangerous position he was now in. 

John's hand held Sherlock's head in place against his shoulder and while he desperately palpated for Sherlock's pulse, John was unaware that Molly was moved her hand from Sherlock's throat, to his own. 

John's questioning expression soon became one of fright when he heard Molly within him say commandingly, "You have to give me yours first, John." Sherlock's breath gasped as John sucked in a panicked breath. John held Sherlock's jaw tight and screamed with Sherlock's voice when Molly drove her fierce power through Sherlock's erratic pulsing organ and into Jon's heart. 


	16. Joined

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ::Ratings change for this chapter::

Molly's energy surrounded John's powerful heart and she marveled at his electricity and strength. John's heart beat steadfast, trying desperately to show her that he could defend against her summons. The territory of John's heart had always been his own, secured in his unaccompanied possession and free of the possibility of betrayal, abuse, and exploitation. But what he felt surrounded by her energy and the heat of Sherlock's body was not threat and malicious intent to plunder of his heart.

For hours or just seconds, John basked in her welcoming light, and she shined generously within him, offering him the refuge of her deliverance. 

Not wanting to risk delaying any longer, Molly flashed the erratic electricity of Sherlock's frantic heart into John and he felt her say, "John, I need you, Sherlock needs you! We can save him together!" Molly moved her fingers down John's carotid arteries and followed their path to his heart and with every beat, Molly conducted his pulsing energy into the charging nucleus of her core. 

Molly and John's eyes were locked when John set his defenses aside. They smiled together with intimate understanding and John surrendered his heart to their cause. Their rhythms synchronized and bloomed with compounding power. 

Molly pressed her body to Sherlock's front and her arms reached out and held the back of John's head with one hand and Sherlock's with the other. Their hearts beat thunderously around Sherlock, louder and more intimidating than drums of war. Molly and John encompassed all that Sherlock surrendered and joined their combined energy in Sherlock's wavering and convulsing heart.

The storm crashed and raged above them, and the overwhelming connection they shared drove their hearts wild with the final desire for the ultimate joining of energies. The waves around them collied violently with the turbulent sand, spraying their aroused flesh with the sea water. Their salty, wet skin conducted primitive and lascivious vibrations that radiated from their cores, reaching for the surface of each other's body.

When Molly felt Sherlock's hand grip the outside of her thighs, John, Sherlock, and Molly's intimate flesh swelled with blood. The purpose of their sex flooded their minds and obsessed them with carnal desire for each other. John hand possessively tightened around Sherlock's neck and he felt their collaborative male arousal deep in his pelvis. John moved his other hand to Sherlock's hip and ground his pelvis against him, encouraging the arousal. 

Both John and Sherlock were looking at Molly with animalistic hunger. Their bodies were slick and heaving in slow unison with each breath and each lecherous rotation of John's hips. Sherlock was shuttering before her and when John's hand wrapped around his erect penis, Sherlock joined the deliberate seducing rhythm. 

Slick arousal pulsed in her when she watched John's hand move over Sherlock, goading on their male obsession for the victory of copulation. Insatiable and brusing, Sherlock clawed at Molly's damp shirt and the elastic fabric of Molly's pants until they fell to the ground. Molly rose her leg and placed her foot next to Sherlock's hip, exposing her center to the heat that radiated from Sherlock's cock each time John pumped him.

John manipulated Sherlock's head so it erotically slid between Molly's folds and around her clit. Electricity shocked through each erogenous zone in their collective minds and bodies as the teasing and yearning made them insane. Unable to stand the pull and tension, Sherlock, John, and Molly working of one instinctive mind, collaborated to pull and guide Molly onto Sherlock's shaft. 

The ocean and atmosphere surged around them, lightening blinded their eyes and burned their joining flesh. Within her body, Molly, Sherlock, and John felt the inflamed and electric pulse of their sex as each heartbeat stimulated their desire. Soon though, Sherlock's flushed, dormant, and barbaric desire for Molly's sex charged froward and rutted into her cunt. John thrust behind Sherlock each time he flexed into Molly, adding to the pressure and friction. Adrenalin fed their muscles and each time their bodies collided, Molly's breasts pressed and bounced entrancingly against Sherlock's chest. 

Lost in the pleasure, Sherlock, John, and Molly explored the sensations within, teaching each other their minds and bodies. The transcendent and omnipotent comprehension of souls glowed in them and married their spirits under the celestial light of the sun, moon, and infinite stars. 

Sherlock and John's rising, virile, and vigorous heartbeat drove Molly's heart to the brink of capability as they took over and brutishly sought their climax in her sex. Sherlock receded his ocean and gathered all the gravity of the sea while John flooded his river and tore a canyon into the sand with his rush to join Sherlock's ocean. 

Consuming Molly's heart and mind, Sherlock and John thrust into her climax with their own release. Sherlock and John's waves of euphoria collided within Molly's ecstasy while the sea and sky moved endlessly around them. 

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"Sherlock," John spoke first and his hoarse voice echoed in the solarium. "Sherlock! Don't let her fall!" John said louder when Molly's knees gave out. Sherlock cradled her body against his chest and John reached his arm around Sherlock to support Molly's head.

"I can feel her, John," Sherlock whispered gazing into Molly's semiconscious face and his voice shook. He held her tighter and tears streaked his face, "Can you feel her, John? We can never let her go." Fearing the loss of her precious presence, Sherlock's simulated instinct compelled him to sweep his arm under Molly's legs and he stood with impassioned vigor. 

John watched Sherlock descend the stairs with flawless coordination despite carrying Molly's limp form. Their porcelain skin sparkled with shining sweat and John dazzled in their light. Halfway to the door, Sherlock inclined his head backward in John's direction and said buoyantly, "To Baker Street."


	17. New Addict

On the steps of Baker Street Sherlock sat in the chilly drizzle while John helped Molly up to the flat. John was the only one of the three who retained strength to make it up the stairs to 221B without assistance. In fact, his energy seemed to be refreshed and plenty, which led Sherlock to contemplate from whom the bulk of energy was predominantly drawn. Could it be John was the one to maintain any strength because he alone has the experience of being the one surrendering to another's power, and thus knows best how to cope? Sherlock, and now Molly, were the novices when it came to surrendering. Was it the sexual contact Molly and Sherlock shared that drained them and powered John? 

Slipping into his mind palace, Sherlock intended to research electrochemistry and any experiments or associations it had regarding homo sapiens, but instead of his well organized library full of all the academic books he had read, Sherlock stood before one great and elaborate door. The frame was fifteen feet tall and a richly stained solid oak--the same oak that supported the door in his mind palace labeled "Dr. John H. Watson." The grand double doors each had clear glass panels and glowed with a rose hue of the light behind them. The keystone supporting the stone arch that framed the transom window was slate black and cut from the same stone that fashioned the hallway in Molly's studio.

There was no label to tell Sherlock who belonged to this portal that so commanded a presence in his mind palace. Feeling disoriented and adrift in his own head, alarm grew in Sherlock's heart and it began to race. Distraught, Sherlock looked around but saw none of the familiar hallways he had long ago constructed. He seemed to be suspended in the blackness of night and the only light source came from the silver lining of the dark clouds around him and the warm light shining through the panes of glass in the door.

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John found Sherlock on his back, awkwardly horizontal on the narrow step. His red eyes gazed past John's face and seemingly into the lions den if Sherlock's expression was anything to go by. John wiped the moisture off of Sherlock's brow and gently slapped his face. "Sherlock? Sherlock? Come back, mate. You're okay, you're okay," John said reassuringly as he pulled Sherlock upright and slung Sherlock's arm over his shoulder as he had done for Sherlock several nights before.

"It gets easier, you know?" John said as he leaned over Sherlock's shoulder and placed a bottle of water in front of him on the kitchen table. The lights under the cabinets reflected off the colored glass tile of the backsplash and inundated the atmosphere in a dim aqua marine glow. "Only after my third or fourth appointment with Molly did I--" John said, but before he could get halfway around the table to the opposite chair or even halfway through his sentence, Sherlock stood abruptly.

"Molly!" Sherlock looked around as if he suddenly realized where he was. His legs wobbled and Sherlock grabbed the back of the chair as John caught his elbow. "Where's Molly!?" Sherlock said in a panic but did not resist when John calmly returned him to the chair.

"Don't worry," John said and he sat down across from Sherlock, "She just got out of the shower. She's in your bedroom." John said as he inclined his brow toward the hallway. "She said we are not to wake her, and go straight to bed after our own showers." 

"Yes...yes, bed," Sherlock said blankly and he took a long drink, finishing the bottle of water. 

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John leaned Sherlock against the sink and started the water. Sherlock moved to unbutton his designer shirt but his fingers fumbled and his focus drifted to the role electrons played in order to create electricity, to the physics of ocean waves, to the black button in his fingers, to symptoms of dehydration, to the steam filling the washroom...

John chuckled when he saw Sherlock trying, and again failing to complete a simple task. Taking pity on the amateur, John set to the task himself. John noticed the perspiration darkening the fabric of Sherlock's shirt and he could suddenly smell the natural musky cologne of copulation on their skin. The sent flashed scenes of their erotic evening behind John's eyelids and the pit of his stomach sunk heavy into his pelvis. When John removed the shirt from Sherlock's shoulders he could feel how heated Sherlock's skin was becoming. 

John turned his flushed face from Sherlock's intense eyes and reached to turn down the temperature of the shower. "Do you think you can manage from here, Sherlock?" John said as he cleared his throat and moved for the door. 

"John," Sherlock said softly in his deep baritone voice and he reached for John's arm, stopping his exit. Sherlock drew John far closer to his body than what was considered a customary or comfortable distance, and their proximity required John to lean his head back in order to maintain eye contact with Sherlock. Sherlock stood up from this sink and his trained posture held his shoulders back and his spine straight. 

"We cannot pretend to understand what has happened," Sherlock said quietly as his eyes looked down into John's. "But what we have discovered..." Sherlock leaned down and gripped John's bicep harder, and he stepped forward and unyieldingly held John against his body. "I want more," Sherlock growled against the rough stubble of John's jaw. 

John slowly leaned his head back, finding Sherlock's features were dark with fierce motive. Delayed and distracted by the aggressive atmosphere, John realized he was panting against the firm heat of Sherlock's body. Sherlock predatorily glanced at John's exposed neck and when he looked back into John's eyes, he was met with reflected vehemence to satisfy a craving. 

"Molly will be the addiction we suffer together, Sherlock," John said fearlessly resolute. 

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When Sherlock stepped out of the washroom with fresh pajama bottoms and dripping hair, it was to see John in the same condition standing outside Sherlock's bedroom door, shirtless and shining with the water droplets that ran down his torso. Sherlock joined John at the threshold of the room and he too was captivated by what he saw. 

Molly lay on her back, asleep in the middle of Sherlock's made bed. It seemed that she hardly bothered even to dry her hair, or pull the covers back for that matter, before she collapsed onto the bed. Sherlock's house robe was over-large for her and she had tied the knot high and tight on her waist, but despite the knot remaining secure, the ill-fitting silken fabric loosely covered the curves of her body.

The perfect embodiment of a woman that lay peaceful on the bed before them challenged any notion Sherlock or John had of the female specimen. The curves of Molly's breasts lured their male need for comfort and pleasure, sweetly offering a soft place to rest one's head or seductively tempting a strong hand to kneed and tease. The side of Molly's hip and thigh were exposed where the robe draped open and the shadows her hip bone defined the taught muscles of her torso and quadriceps. All the alluring details of her body accentuated the intimate knowledge John and Sherlock now had of her energy. 

Sherlock's exhaustion creeped through his body and he swayed with the effort of remaining upright. John instinctively placed a steadying hand on Sherlock's shoulder and led him to the side of the bed. Sherlock tucked his face under Molly's chin and nuzzled his head into the softness of her chest. John took his place on her other side and they both crossed an arm over her stomach. Placing their heavy hands around her hips, Sherlock and John curled their bodies protectively around Molly and slept. 


	18. Contract Null and Void

Molly woke the next morning at 11:15 according to the beside clock. Sounds of a violin playing an airy and melodic tune drifted into the bedroom. Molly smiled at the melody as it cascaded and twirled, forever keeping a deep chord in the background. Warmth spread across her memory as the song guided her back to their beach. 

The strings suddenly screeched over the strings, "Damn!" Sherlock huffed. "It's wrong, John! How am I to keep the base string resounding when the melody must be in a higher cadence!?" Sherlock asked rhetorically. Molly silently rolled off the bed and retied the sash of Sherlock's house robe tightly around her. Her footsteps felt lithe and powerful as she crept to the doorway and peeked into the living room.

"Tell me again what you felt when you held my breath and Molly showed you what you must do," Sherlock commanded of John as he pointed the bow at John's chest. John was in his chair, though it was pushed back near to the kitchen and Molly understood why when Sherlock spun around and walked up to the frigid breeze moving through the lace curtains of the window, paused, then strode back and forth on the worn carpet in front of John. 

When Sherlock had his back turned, Molly tip-toed into the kitchen, quietly helped herself to the tea on the table and hid behind the orange stained glass partition between the kitchen and living room. 

"Right," John obliged rather eager to relive the event. He pulled the blanket up behind his neck and continued, "You were unconscious, or it seemed like you were. I don't know how anyone could be truly conscious when they are in ventricular fibrillation. Although, one can be asymptomatic for a time..."

"John!" Sherlock stopped John's distracted medical thought process. "I've told you; all I knew in that moment before you and Molly started my heart, was you breath in my chest and your words coming from my lips, 'Please, Molly. He is giving up, take his heart.'" Sherlock's face was flushed and though he only wore pajama bottoms, a sheen of sweat covered his torso. 

"Well," John continued. "And I don't think she knew until that moment what I had to do--but she gripped my throat and I felt the electric pulse in her fingers rush into my chest and surround my heart."

"Surround!" Sherlock ejaculated and startled John from the memory of her words, 'You have to give me yours first, John.' "That is the key! That is the base note, it must connect the melodies!" Sherlock threw the violin under his chin and drew the bow long across a deep note, allowing the vibrato to move the note up and down. Before the note was ended, Sherlock spoke strong and loud over the vibrating string, "And I screamed for you, with our breath!"

Again, the bow tore across the strings with a sharp screech. "Shh!" John shushed Sherlock's soliloquy. 

"John, try and do it." Sherlock had moved to kneel in front of John and grabbed his hands placing one up to his own throat and the other on his chest. "Give it a go! Talk through me again so I can get the composition right."

Sherlock's skin was cold and clammy from the open window but John instinctively gripped the side of Sherlock's neck. A sudden and surprising desire for possession of such a willing subject flooded John's energy, Molly felt it too.

Coming out from behind the partition, Molly sipped her lemongrass tea sweetly and said, "Perhaps you are focusing on too many melodies at once, Sherlock." Both John and Sherlock jumped when they heard her voice.

Sherlock stood and stalwartly said, "No, Molly. There is only one melody in this composition. It is the dance of three inspirations that has me confusing the theme." Sherlock hotly turned and attempted the melody again. John and Molly chuckled at Sherlock's indignation. Standing from his chair, John opened his arms to Molly with his blanket to cover her shoulders. 

"Let me make you some toast, Molly," John said as he held her shoulders over the blanket and walked her into the kitchen. "Sherlock, come and join us when you are done with your refrain."

Only seconds later did Sherlock join Molly at the kitchen table as John got out the bread and butter. Molly and Sherlock started at each other, Sherlock's eyes eager to see her near him once again, Molly contented and morning-dischevled. John busied himself longer than what would seem necessary to prepare toast, but he was enjoying the scene as he watched the two over his shoulder. 

John placed a plate of buttered toast before John and Molly and sat down in his own chair at the table. "I believe we have some things to discuss about...." John paused and held Sherlock and Molly's attention. "Our, situation," John finished. 

Molly smiled at John's description and looked up at John and Sherlock over her tea. John had clearly rose first, showered, breakfasted, and collected his thoughts all before Sherlock himself came out of the bedroom by mid morning. Sherlock appeared to have rolled out of bed and went straight for his violin, unaware of his halfway state of undress, and sweating with his exertion to compose their song.

They were looking at Molly to define the next move, and while she considered the pair of them she hid her excited smile behind her mug. Molly said in her professional tone. "I hold that the circumstances are now such that physical contracts and signatures are moot and that what is to follow will defined by our collective party."

"Ah, HA!" Sherlock said and pointed at John. "I told you so!"

"Told me what?" John questioned. For John and Sherlock had not discussed anything in regards to the contract they all signed. 

"Did we not have that conversation aloud?" Sherlock paused looking confused. "Well, I win arguments with you all the time, even if you know you aren't participating. 'Sherlock,'" Sherlock continued in a mock imitation of John. "'Won't Molly not allow us to talk about what happened unless we are at the Studio as per the contract?'" Sherlock cocked his head, imitating his own overly confident self, "'Of course not, John. The contract does not apply to us anymore, the conditions are no longer the same.'" Sherlock looked to Molly then to John expecting them to suddenly remember a pretend conversation. "Anyway," Sherlock flipped his hands up and shoved a whole piece of toast in his mouth, "told you."

Molly and John laughed at the display of Sherlock's internal conversation and of his interpretation of John and himself. Sherlock chewed twice, and his heart warmed at the sight of Molly and John laughing, seeing now the humor in his mocking. Sherlock chuckled and bits of toast crumbs fell on the table.

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"So, it is agreed," Molly said as she led them down the hallway to Sherlock's bedroom after their toast and tea. "We will meet again on Friday evening," Molly dropped the gown from her shoulders, keeping her bare back to John and Sherlock, "Sherlock will drink more water," Molly pulled her woolen top over her head and hitched up her leggings, "And I will be the subject." 

Sherlock and John stood speechless as they watched her dress and did not realize now was their turn to respond. "Unless, you think both of you can't handle it," Molly said nonchalantly and she combed her fingers through her tousled hair. 

"What! Wait, no!" Sherlock said quickly. 

"Sherlock and I can do it!" John added and they looked at each other excited for the challenge. 

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Sherlock and John watched from the second story window as Molly walked cheerfully down the street and out of sight, and Sherlock felt her pull from his center when she turned the corner. Looking down over John's shoulder, Sherlock wondered if John also felt her gravity. 

"I can feel her pull on me even when she is gone," John said quietly answering the unspoken question. 

"I feel it too, John," Sherlock answered, and when John turned and walked to the kitchen, Sherlock felt the string of energy within him unwind with each step John took from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the short chapter. I have never written so much dialogue, but it is a transition chapter and I felt a bit stuck on how to get to where we're headed. 
> 
> An pointers on how to write dialogue would be appreciated!
> 
> Meanwhile, another story idea came to my mind and now I'm excited to start a new story. But it'll have to wait: I have to get to the end of the two I have going now!


End file.
